In Graham, North Carolina, law enforcement officers used pepper spray on Saturday to break up a march to a polling station.
According to CNN, a statement from the Graham Police Department claims officers pepper-sprayed the ground in order to disperse the crowd when the demonstration was deemed “unsafe and unlawful” due to unspecified “actions.”
But a North Carolina Democratic congressional candidate who was at the march, Scott Huffman, said demonstrators were only exercising their First Amendment rights when officers used the pepper spray.
In a video he posted to Twitter, Huffman said, “We were peacefully demonstrating, we were exercising our First Amendment rights with Black Lives Matter.”
The “I Am Change” march was branded as a “march to the polls” where participants were encouraged to march in honor of Black people whose deaths have fueled protests over the racial injustice in America, including the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Trayvon Martin.
Graham police said at least eight people were arrested during the rally for various charges, including failure to disperse and one instance of assault on a law enforcement officer.
Peaceful protests for Souls to the Polls & Black Lives Matter turned violent because law enforcement tried to take the sound equipment. Proper permits were issued #BLM #SoulsToThePolls pic.twitter.com/wJlqH3ZNaN
— Scott Huffman (@HuffmanForNC) October 31, 2020
