Men claim they were wrongfully arrested during protest outside Louisville convention center

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Two men claim they were wrongfully arrested Saturday during a protest for racial justice in downtown Louisville. 

Montez Jones and Adrien Taylor were arrested while a group demonstrated outside the Kentucky International Convention Center. They were charged with obstructing a highway and second-degree disorderly conduct, according to arrest citations.

Jones and Taylor, who have been regular participants in protests over the police killing of Breonna Taylor on March 13, 2020, spoke out against those charges Tuesday at the scene of Saturday's demonstration. 

"I was there less than 10 minutes," Taylor said. "I got out my car, came on the sidewalk. I crossed the street, came back, (and) police pulled up and they arrested me." 

In Taylor's arrest report, a Louisville Metro Police officer said they saw Taylor step into the road, "disrupting vehicle traffic and causing alarm to drivers as well as people who were attending the (Kentucky International Convention Center)." 

A livestream of the protest on LMPD's Facebook page briefly shows an officer talking with Taylor, who appears to be in handcuffs. The officer can be heard telling Taylor, "You're standing out in the middle of the street with your fist up, and it's a green light" before the person filming the livestream turns the camera away from the interaction. 

Taylor, however, called the charges against him "vague" and said police targeted him and Jones because "they feel like we are leaders out here." 

"They targeting all the leaders because they feel like since March 13 is coming — Breonna Taylor died on March 13; it's the anniversary — they feel they gonna target the leaders and come for the leaders and arrest us to make an example."

Jones, meanwhile, said he and Taylor were helping parents and children who were attending a cheerleading competition at the convention center cross the street. 

"While we was doing that — we was coming across the street — the police was down a block away at the light ... watching us," Jones said. 

The officers who arrested Jones addressed him by name, he said, and told him they spotted him in a light-blue jacket in the middle of the road. In Jones' arrest report, an LMPD officer said he "intentionally made the roadway impassible" and caused "annoyance and alarm to the public." 

"They pulled up and wrongfully arrested me for helping a parent and their kid walk across the street," Jones said. 

The demonstration outside the convention center was met with criticism from parents of cheerleaders and others who were upset at comments directed toward children participating in the competition. 

One parent of cheerleaders told WDRB News on Sunday that protesters "were badgering them all the way in the door" and that his oldest daughter "cried for about an hour" after the interaction. 

Taylor said he had no part in the comments directed toward cheerleaders and their families. 

"I work with kids for a living — from babies to even young adults," he said. "... I don't come out my way to bully no kids or to mistreat kids, because what would that look like on me?

"... For them to put that narrative on me or that stereotype on me like I did something out here, it's just wrong. I stepped out of my car and got arrested for no reason. Almost spent two days in jail for no reason." 

When asked about comments made toward children, Jones said those comments were directed toward police when they arrested him and Taylor. 

A Facebook livestream from Tara Bassett with 502 Livestreamers captured one protester, Carmen Jones, telling cheerleaders, "The reason why you get to be here in these pretty little gorgeous outfits and your gorgeous hair and your gorgeous bows is because of your white privilege.

"Breonna (Taylor) is dead," she continued. "Black mothers are burying their babies while white mothers send their daughters to cheer competitions."

On Sunday, Carmen Jones told WDRB News that she and others are standing by their words and their message. 

"Yes, I did tell them don't be somebody that my child is going to have to fight," she said. "Because right now I'm fighting the grandchildren, the great grandchildren of people's ancestors who didn't do right.

"... Breonna Taylor will never be able to have a child to be able to take to a cheer competition," she continued. "If Black kids are children enough and child enough and mature enough to go through the things that we go through as children, then their children are children enough, child enough and mature enough to learn about their privilege."

In a statement Sunday, LMPD spokeswoman Beth Ruoff said the department "respects the right to protest and is committed to working with any entity or individual on identifying a path forward that allows for freedom of expression in a manner that does not create public safety issues."

Jones and Taylor's attorney, David Mour, called on white residents to hold Mayor Greg Fischer and city officials accountable on meeting protesters' demands to solve issues of systemic racism within the city's police department. 

"Then we don't have to worry about a couple of Black guys or Black women standing out on the corner at a cheerleader convention yelling at people to try to get their attention to change things," he said. 

According to a top-to-bottom review of LMPD published in January, there is a "racial disproportionality" in police actions such as traffic stops and arrests. It found that Black people are pulled over and arrested unevenly based on population size, which has created a "deeply strained" relationship between LMPD and predominantly Black neighborhoods.

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