A Black pastor who was arrested by white police officers in Alabama while watering the flowers at a neighbor’s house filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against the three officers and the town of Childersburg.
Michael Jennings alleges in his lawsuit that the actions of Officers Christopher Smith and Justin Gable, Sgt. Jeremy Brooks and the city violated his constitutional rights protecting against unlawful arrest and guaranteeing free speech. The court documents said the ordeal also caused lingering problems including emotional distress and anxiety.
Jennings, 56, has requested a jury trial and is seeking an unspecified amount of money.
NBC News reports Jennings, a longtime pastor at Vision of Abundant Life Church in Sylacauga, Alabama, was detained on May 22 by Childersburg officers responding to a 911 call about a suspicious person.
Jennings identified himself as “Pastor Jennings” but refused to provide identification to the officers, who arrested him on a charge of obstructing government operations after a 20-minute confrontation that included raised voices on both sides.
The charges were later dropped in June at the request of the police chief at the time.
Jennings appeared at a news conference called by his attorneys on Saturday outside of the Birmingham federal courthouse.
“I’m here for accountability, and I’m here for justice,” he told the assembled reporters.
The pastor said the officer “already figured I was guilty by the way he questioned me and the way he talked to me.”
“One thing I want to make crystal clear, I’m not anti-police. We need the police,” he noted. “Without the police, we’ll have full chaos. But there’s bad police, there’s good police.”
He continued, “But what they did that day, they did with impunity, figuring there would be no action taken against them. I felt dehumanized.”
Last month, Jennings’ legal team released a police body camera video of the arrest that was obtained following a records request to the city, located 55 miles southeast of Birmingham.
In the video, the pastor is seen outside a house, holding a garden hose and watering shrubs and flowers when Officer Smith walked up and asked him what he was doing.
“Watering flowers,” Jennings replied. When told someone had called in regarding the SUV parked in the driveway, he said, “I’m supposed to be here. I’m Pastor Jennings and I live across the street,” the video showed. “I’m looking out for the house while they’re gone.”
Jennings then repeated the same information to Officer Gable when he arrived.
Smith asked the pastor to show him his ID, but he refused saying he hadn’t done anything wrong. The officer tried to tell Jennings he wasn’t saying he did anything wrong, but there was a report of a suspicious person in the yard.”
Jennings then began to walk away from the officers and Gable informed him that he would be facing an obstruction charge if he continued. Gable then placed the pastor in handcuffs.
In the video, the woman who called the police approached the officers, told them he was from their neighborhood, and apologized to Jennings.
Even though the pastor’s wife later arrived at the house and showed the two officers his ID, the officers took Jennings into custody.
Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama branch of the NAACP, said the officers who arrested Jennings did “so many things” that weren’t in line with good community policing tactics.
“These poor judgment decisions reflect poorly on the type of training the Childersburg police officers receive… if they were acting in accordance within police guidelines,” Simelton said in a statement.
According to Alabama law, an officer “may stop any person abroad in a public place” if they suspect that person is committing, has committed or is about to commit a crime.
Attorneys for Jennings previously said their client did not have to provide identification “because he was not in a public place,” according to NBC News.
According to reports from multiple outlets, Childersburg city attorney Reagan Rumsey has not responded to the lawsuit. CBN News has also attempted to reach out to Rumsey for comment. We’ll post it here if we hear back.
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