Law enforcement officers used pepper spray on Saturday to break up a march to a polling place in Graham, North Carolina.
According to a statement from the Graham Police Department, officers pepper sprayed the ground to disperse the crowd when the demonstration was deemed “unsafe and unlawful” due to unspecified “actions.”
But Scott Huffman, a North Carolina Democratic congressional candidate who attended the march, said demonstrators were only exercising their First Amendment rights when law enforcement used the pepper spray in Graham, about 30 miles east of Greensboro.
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 racial injustice, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Trayvon Martin, among others, according to a flyer for the event.
