Two women who were arrested for trying to manage a colony of stray cats have filed a lawsuit against the mayor, police chief, assistant chief and three officers involved in the ugly incident.
The July 2022 arrest drew nationwide outrage and condemnation as police responded in force to a complaint that Beverly Roberts, 86, and Mary Alston, 61, were trespassing in a wooded area and trapping cats. Body camera footage showed police treating the women like violent criminals, the police response itself was disproportionate, and the police chief doubled down on his insistence that the women deserved to be treated harshly even after damning footage showed the officers laughing about “beatin’ up on some old ladies.”
Now Roberts and Alston have sued Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis, Police Chief Greg Benton, the assistant chief and three officers, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
Noting that the women were paying out of their own pockets to help manage the stray cat population, the paper detailed the allegations in the civil suit:
“The suit alleges that Willis directed their arrests and that Benton and Reeves acted on the mayor’s orders. The women had angered city officials for “being vocal” about the care of animals in the city and appearing at several city council meetings to complain that the city was not enforcing anti-animal cruelty ordinances on the books, specifically the law banning the chaining or tethering of dogs, the lawsuit states.
The suit argues that the women were arrested under false circumstances. The women were originally charged with criminal trespassing.”
Footage of the summer 2022 arrest showed officers handling the women roughly, jabbing their fingers in their faces, threatening them with additional charges and barking at them to move more quickly.
The women were taken aback.
“I’m teetering on going to jail for feeding cats?” Alston asked in body camera footage of the police response.
Another officer towered over Roberts, jabbing a finger at her and warning it was “going to get ugly” if she didn’t move more quickly before eventually cuffing her.
After a show trial in municipal court in late 2022, in which Roberts and Alston were convicted of trespassing by a judge appointed by Mayor Jerry Willis, the women appealed. Despite the conviction, the municipal trial resulted in the release of damning information, including the fact that it was Willis himself who called the police on Roberts and Alston, that he did so because he didn’t like their complaints about the way the city handled animal issues, and that he instructed the police to arrest the women before they arrived in four patrol cars and had a chance to assess the situation.
Willis called the police after spotting Alston’s car near a county-owned plot of land, and lacking any ordinance that prohibited feeding or trapping stray cats, the police resorted to charging the women with misdemeanor trespassing and “obstructing governmental operations,” a charge roughly equivalent to resisting arrest.
But the land was county-owned, there were no prohibitions on managing cat colonies or conducting TNR (trap, neuter, return), and the footage — which police tried to hide from the public for months before finally caving to legal threats from attorneys for the women — was damning, drawing universal condemnation.
Roberts and Alston appealed, and in April of 2023 county court Judge J. Amanda Baxley accepted a motion by prosecutors to drop the case.
The civil suit “alleges unlawful seizure and detention, excessive force, malicious prosecution, negligence, wantonness and other counts,” per the Advertiser.
Attorneys for Roberts and Alston didn’t specify a dollar amount, but said they’re seeking “compensatory and punitive damages” and legal fees related to the arrest and resulting drama, which has played out for more than a year and a half. A spokesman for the City of Wetumpka did not respond to the Advertiser’s request for comment.
via Pain In The Bud