Bojangles worker arrested for legal THCA joint at bus stop sues Charlotte police
Anthony Lee finished his shift at Bojangles, sparked a pre-rolled hemp cigarette, and sat on the bench outside. He was waiting for the bus, but police came first.
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Bystander video showing an officer hitting the woman Lee was with 17 times previously went viral and garnered widespread criticism. Lee, represented by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, on Monday filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the two officers who first approached him and Christina Pierre for smoking legal weed in 2023. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers unlawfully arrested them, he said in the lawsuit requesting an unspecified amount of money for the damages.
On Nov. 13, 2023, CMPD officers Devan Wilson and Kenneth Kludy passed by a south Charlotte bus stop in Steele Creek and stopped to approach Lee and Pierre.
“It smelled like you’re smoking weed,” Wilson said.
That wasn’t the case, Lee said. “This is stuff from the store. It’s sold in the store. It’s THCA.”
Federal law in 2018 and state law in 2022 legalized certain hemp products that have below 0.3% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9 THC), which is the psychoactive part of cannabis that makes people feel high. Soon after, smoke shops across the country started selling hemp products below that threshold. Lee told police he had bought one of those legal products from a smoke shop across the street, and that’s what he was smoking.
The officers never responded to his explanation. Instead, they arrested him and forcibly cuffed Pierre. Another officer, Vincent Pistone, was suspended for striking Pierre seven times with his knee and 10 times with his fist. Police charged Lee with possession of marijuana, resisting a public officer and carrying a concealed gun. They charged Pierre with possession of marijuana, resisting a public officer and assault on a government official.
Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather’s Office dropped all charges, saying: “After consideration of the body-worn camera evidence and the various recorded accounts of police and civilian witnesses present … the State does not have a reasonable likelihood of success at any potential trial.”
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The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, an organization of lawyers, scientists and activists who focus on racism and oppression in the criminal legal system, says the arrests were in line with CMPD arrest trends. Data shows Black Charlotte residents are more likely to be stopped and experience “use of force” from officers, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also contends that the officers never should have pulled over to the bus stop. When laws made some hemp legal, it made it impossible to distinguish legal products from illegal marijuana.
That’s why CMPD attorneys in 2021 told officers that they will need “additional evidence beyond the sight or smell of marijuana to establish probable cause” for arrests, according to the lawsuit.
Attorneys for the organization are requesting a trial in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
The lawsuit also claims former Police Chief Johnny Jennings made false statements in his op-ed about the arrest, which was published in The Charlotte Observer. Jennings said officers had probable cause and said that the joint Lee and Pierre were smoking “tested positive for marijuana.”
Tests cannot differentiate between marijuana and legal THC products, the lawsuit says.
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This is a developing story.
