By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
A political activist from Gainesville was arrested by Williston police on Oct. 17 for using a powerful loudspeaker system to drown out a lawful gathering by the Democratic Women’s Club of Levy County at Heritage Park.
Keniuel Jamara Gates, 44, was arrested on a charge of breach of the peace, disorderly conduct for disrupting a lawful gathering of the Democratic Women’s Club of Levy County celebrating the life of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The club had gathered at the Heritage Park Pavilion, next door to Williston City Hall, to listen to guest speakers but their voices were drowned out by Gates’ powerful sound system as he yelled “No Justice, No Peace. He was positioned at the corner of City Hall in close proximity to the pavilion.
Gates had done something similar when he pointed his loudspeaker at the Williston City Council chambers and blasted the council during its Oct. 6 board meeting with chants of “No Justice, No Peace.” Council members could be heard over the noise of the loudspeaker because they were wearing lapel microphones that amplified and broadcast their voices through speakers in the ceiling.
State Attorney Bill Cervone said witnesses to the Oct. 17 incident at Heritage Park will be interviewed by his staff to establish the facts of what actually happened. The witnesses may include the Democratic women attending the function that asked Gates to lower the volume of his broadcast and were turned down, as well as city police who got an identical response from the political activist when they asked him to turn down the volume.
Cervone said the charges in the criminal arrest filed by city police might be changed to accurately reflect the crimes Gates is alleged to have committed by disrupting a permitted gathering of the Democratic Women’s Club. The State Attorney’s office always reserves the right to look at the label law enforcement officers chose when they made the arrest “and what label puts us in the best posture” to take the case to court.
“We are in the process of interviewing witnesses and evaluating the level of requirements for various charges and we anticipate the filing in short order. I can’t give you an exact date,” Cervone said. “It is my intent to bring charges against the defendant and have him brought before the court in the near future.”
Cervone said this isn’t the first case the State Attorney’s office has investigated in which people disrupted different functions in different municipalities over the years.
“Things can get complicated sometimes depending on how and what they are doing. People have to be allowed to have their public comment but they can’t be disruptive, things of that sort. You get into all sorts of free speech restrictions, so we need to make sure we are charging in a way that I believe we can carry off in the courtroom,” Cervone said.
The original complaint about the disruptive noise was filed by a business person who contacted police about being unable to conduct business. Five women from the Democratic Women’s Club also walked over to ask Gates to lower the volume. He refused. City police asked Gates to turn down the volume. He refused, saying they were violating his rights. Police walked over to the pavilion and listened to the guest speakers. They said the voices of speakers were being drowned out by Gates’ powerful public address system. He was arrested.
One of the interesting aspects of the Oct. 17 incident was that Gates was drowning out a gathering of Democratic women aimed at celebrating the life of an American feminist icon, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Police Chief Dennis Strow said he believes all, or most of the five Democratic women who asked Gates to turn down the volume were African American. Gates is also African American. The city police officers who investigated the incident determined Gates was disrupting the gathering.
“When the officers asked him to quiet down and he refused, they walked over to the pavilion, stood in the pavilion, and said he was very clearly and plainly drowning out the guest speakers,” Strow said.
The police chief said he got a taste of Gates’ speech on one occasion.
“I have a biracial granddaughter and he started picking on her – ‘Hey chief why don’t you come over and tell us about your pretty biracial granddaughter’,” Strow said, quoting Gates. “He’s actually irritating everybody and he’s accomplishing nothing other than making everybody angry. He’s upset about what the mayor said (Mayor Jerry Robinson). What the mayor said is he doesn’t support the Black Lives Matter movement. What he means by that – he’s not into the rioting, looting, and burning and he thinks everybody ought to be treated equally, so that’s what Gates is upset about.”
The Black Lives Matter movement alleges systemic racism exists in the American system of justice, including many police departments and in American society, a charge BLM opponents dispute. BLM members sometimes quote the late Dr. Martin Luther King who said “a riot is the language of the unheard.” But King’s primary message was that the path to racial equality and peace is through non-violence.
“Again and again, we must rise to majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force,” King said.
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Photo of Keniuel Jamara Gates – florida.arrests.org
Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt October 29, 2020; Posted October 29, 2020
