One of the main assistants to 2020 protest organizer Rev. Gregory Drumwright was found guilty Wednesday of three of four charges brought against him for his role in the October 31, 2021 march and protest at the Alamance County Historic Court House.
Brenden Jamar Kee, 28, black, male, of 645 Creek Ridge Road, Greensboro, was charged with four misdemeanor offenses: two counts of resisting a public officer; public disturbance; and failure to disperse on command.
At Kee’s trial Wednesday in district court, judge Lunsford Long III found Kee guilty of three of the charges, agreeing with the prosecution’s request to remove one of the resisting a public officer charges, but finding him guilty of the other three charges.
Still photos captured from video footage recorded at the October 31 march and rally in downtown Graham appeared to show Kee in the middle of a struggle over a gas-powered generator that Alamance County sheriff’s deputies had attempted to confiscate after discovering it had been brought onto the grounds of the county’s Historic Court House, in violation of the permit issued to Drumwright for the event.
Numerous sheriff’s deputies had testified at earlier trials, and reiterated some of that testimony on Wednesday, that the facilities use permit that had been granted for the event required any sound amplification equipment to be battery-powered.
See more details in tomorrow’s (September 2) edition of The Alamance News – and online here.
Meanwhile, another protester who used a bullhorn to protest outside the jail as other protesters were being booked in the magistrates’ offices was found not guilty Wednesday of a reduced charge of creating a public disturbance outside the Alamance County jail that October 31 afternoon.
Originally, Faith Cook, 43, black, female, of 330 West Market Street, Graham, Cook had been arrested on a misdemeanor charge of rioting outside the Alamance County detention center, following the arrests of 23 people during the “I Am Change Legacy March to the Polls” and rally at Alamance County’s Historic Court House.
The event was terminated early after sheriff’s deputies discovered that a gas can and gas-powered generator had been brought onto the courthouse grounds, violating a permit that had been granted for the event.
Alamance County assistant district attorney Kevin Harrison elected Wednesday to prosecute Cook on a reduced misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct.
Three Alamance County’s sheriff’s deputies testified at Cook’s trial in district court that the group that went to protest outside the jail on the afternoon of October 31 had been instructed not to use megaphones, and though they’d stopped for a while, she was arrested after the racket started up again.
“She was not charged because of what she said – it was the noise,” Cliff Parker, chief deputy for the Alamance County sheriff’s office, testified Wednesday.
Retired visiting district court judge Lunsford Long, III of Orange County, concluded that, based on the testimony, “It looks like a noise ordinance. I think it needed to stop, [but] I think it’s a noise ordinance violation,” he said in granting a motion by Cook’s attorney, Jason Keith of Greensboro, to dismiss the case against Cook.
