Noblesville Free Speech Suppression

Ademo Freeman and Brian Sumner are police accountability activists who came through Indiana. Their goal is to keep police accountable by filming them whenever possible. One of their activism activities includes chalking sidewalks to spread the message of police accountability. When they came through Noblesville, Indiana they didn’t expect to get jailed for their actions.

So why did they land in jail for something that, on the surface, seems like an act of free speech?

The plan for Ademo and Bryan was to stay in jail until they were released so that they could fight the charges without losing a lot of money. While in jail, however, jailers transferred Brian to a cell where he’d have to sleep on the floor by the toilet rather than in a bed. This broke his will to stay in there and fight the charges that were intended to suppress his speech. Without much experience being in jail he decided to get bailed out.

This seems to be how our justice system works. People are threatened with felonies and plead out to misdemeanors over and over again. When Ademo and Bryan heard about the charges they were felonies. They were out of state at the time and traveled back to Indiana to turn themselves in. The charges turned out to be at the misdemeanor level and not felony.

The police won. Bryan and Ademo plead out and they decided not to fight the civil-rights violations committed by the police. And this is a terrible thing.

If you want to know more about what Ademo and Bryan do, and specifically this situation, check out copblock.org/noblesville