A Black pastor in Alabama says police unlawfully arrested him in May 2022 while he was watering his neighbor’s flowers.
Attorneys for Michael Jennings, a longtime pastor at Vision of Abundant Life Church in Sylacauga, Alabama, have released police body cam video of his arrest and say legal action against the Childersburg Police Department is forthcoming.
“This video makes it clear that these officers decided they were going to arrest Pastor Jennings less than five minutes after pulling up and then tried to rewrite history claiming he hadn’t identified himself when that was the first thing he did,” said Harry Daniels, an Atlanta attorney representing Jennings, in a statement. “This was not only an unlawful arrest. It’s kidnapping.”
Childersburg police arrested Jennings on May 22 and charged him with obstructing government operations, according to a criminal complaint. A municipal judge dismissed the case in June, according to court documents provided to USA TODAY by Jennings’ attorneys.
The arrest and charge were “irrational, irresponsible and illegal,” Daniels said in the statement.
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The Childersburg Police Department was not immediately available for comment.
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‘I’m supposed to be here’
The police body cam video shows officers approaching Jennings, who is watering flowers and plants outside a home in Childersburg. Police ask him what he is doing, and he tells them he is watering flowers and “I’m supposed to be here. I’m Pastor Jennings. I live across the street.”
The officers say they are responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle and a suspicious person and ask Jennings for his identification; he tells them he doesn’t need to give them an identification. Jennings said he hadn’t done anything suspicious or done anything wrong.
Shouting ensues and Jennings tells the officers: “I told him I’m a pastor. … You want to lock me up, lock me up. … Lock me up and see what happens. I want you to.”
At one point, Jennings accuses the officers of racially profiling him.
Later, one of the officers says, “When we get a call you have to identify yourself, you understand?”
After officers handcuff Jennings, a neighbor who called police about a suspicious person tells the officers she recognizes Jennings. When the police ask if he has permission to be at the home watering the flowers, she says, “He may because they are friends.”
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Daniels claims Jennings, who is a former police officer himself, did not have to identify himself because he was not in a public place, according to Alabama’s Stop and Identify Law.
Legal action against the department is “forthcoming,” Daniels told USA TODAY.
A march and rally in Birmingham is planned to support Jennings, he said.
Daniels was among the attorneys who represented the family of Andrew Brown Jr., an unarmed Black man who was shot and killed in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in April 2021. The family, which filed a $30 million civil rights lawsuit, was awarded a $3 million settlement in June 2022.
“Chief (Richard) McClelland and the Childersburg Police Department may think all they have to do is drop the charges and this all goes away,” said Bethaney Embry Jones, another attorney representing Jennings, in the statement. “This was a crime, not a mistake. I would hope that the Childersburg Police Department would understand the difference.”
Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.