By Raphael Satter
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Participants at a rally in a small North Carolina city to turn out the vote ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election were pepper-sprayed by law enforcement officials on Saturday, according to videos broadcast online and witnesses.
Videos showed officers firing pepper spray into the crowd in Graham, a city of about 15,000 located about 40 miles from Raleigh-Durham. North Carolina is a crucial battleground state in the Nov. 3 contest between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Shon Green, a 28-year-old activist who helped organize the protest, said police abruptly ordered an end to a peaceful rally, which had been due to end at a polling station.
“There was no explanation or anything,” Green said in a telephone interview. “They started pulling out their guns and grabbing their weapons. Then they started spraying people.”
Green said he was sprayed in the face and later slammed to the ground before being briefly taken into custody.
The Graham Police Department, in a press release, said officers used a pepper spray, which it said was sprayed into the ground, after rally participants failed to follow a command to stop blocking a road.
“As a result of actions that occurred within the rally, on courthouse grounds, the assembly reached a level of conduct that led to the rally being deemed unsafe and unlawful by unified command,” the police statement said. Following warnings that force would be used if people did not disperse after 5 minutes, the department said officers used the pepper spray after several people still remained.
The Burlington Times-News newspaper said one of its reporters was among those pepper-sprayed and said they did not hear any warning before the police action.
Protester Amy Cooper, 31, said that youngsters and the elderly were among those attacked.
“I saw it hit a child,” she said of the pepper spray. “She got it straight in the mouth and she vomited everywhere.”
Dreama Caldwell, who is a candidate for Alamance County commissioner, told Reuters that officers were to blame.
“The only violence that happened today was from the police,” she said.
(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by Leslie Adler)
