Prosecutors ‘unjustly’ enhanced charges in ‘Operation Street Defender’ arrests, Macon NAACP says

The Macon-Bibb County branch of the NAACP said Thursday that several Macon citizens were wrongly charged with reckless stunt driving and other crimes after they were arrested in October.

The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office arrested 32 people for various crimes when they found a stunt driving group in Carolyn Crayton Park the night of Oct. 9, according to a statement from the office. Deputies and state troopers also towed 60 cars at the park, recovered 14 weapons and “numerous narcotics” as a part of what they dubbed “Operation Street Defender.”

Of those arrested, 27 were initially charged with unlawful assembly. The NAACP said that some charges were unjustly “upgraded” to stunt driving and reckless conduct, despite the fact that the people were not driving, to get them to plead guilty.

“To first charge these people with unlawful assembly and then charge them with something more serious to get them to plead guilty, it doesn’t make sense,” said Macon’s NAACP chapter president Gwenette Westbrooks. “They need to have evidence that these people were stunt driving to charge them.”

Westbrooks said that many of the people arrested chose to go to trial because they felt the charges were unjust, though she did not give an exact number.

One woman was coerced into pleading guilty to reckless conduct instead of unlawful assembly, according to Wetsbrooks, who said authorities told the woman she would lose her driver’s license if she did not plead guilty.

Westbrooks called on the Bibb County solicitor-general’s office to “reverse and drop” the additional charges. She said the charges would show up on the peoples’ records and put them at risk of losing their jobs.

“We wanted to make it very clear, we don’t condone breaking the law,” Westbrooks said. “If they were charged with unlawful gathering, we’re okay with that. But because the solicitor has changed the charges to a harsher charge, to only go back and reduce the charge to get them to (plead)…their jobs are in jeopardy, that’s a social injustice to me.”

Unlawful assembly, reckless conduct and stunt driving are all misdemeanors. Westbrooks said she did not know how many of the 27 people had their charges changed.

Solicitor general Rebecca Grist’s office said in a statement that they changed the charges to “reckless stunt driving” due to evidence available. Unlawful assembly was “not a viable charge,” the statement said.

“However, participants were given the opportunity to plea to a lesser charge of Loitering or Reckless Conduct which does not carry any consequences to a person’s driver’s license and people charged were given the opportunity to pay the citation in the same manner as a speeding ticket could be paid,” Grist’s statement said. “Some people, if eligible under the Court’s criteria, were offered the opportunity to participate in a pre-trial diversion program. Anyone placed on probation for that loitering charge had all probation fees waived and the probation was terminated immediately upon the person’s satisfaction of the fine.”

Some of the people charged did choose to go to trial and the office will prosecute “with the charges that were appropriate based on evidence available,” Grist said in the statement. “In some cases, the evidence available was insufficient to prove a person’s involvement beyond a reasonable doubt and those cases have been dismissed as was appropriate.”

This story was originally published March 9, 2023 at 2:12 PM.