Felipe Fernandez-Armesto: Whatever Happened to the Investigation of His Arrest for Jaywalking by the Atlanta police?
HNN on several occasions has called the mayor's office in Atlanta to follow-up. Each time we were instruicted to leave a voice mail for the press office. Each time we got no response. We asked Arnita Jones, executive director of the American Historical Association, if the AHA had heard anything from the mayor's office in response to the organization's letter of concern. She indicated the AHA had received no response as well.
Professor Fernandez-Armesto has told HNN he has been notified by email that the city investigated the arrest and exonerated the police. But officials never got his side of the story, he says. He is therefore hiring a law firm"to demand that a properly constituted inquiry into the public interest aspects of the case" be undertaken.
He sent us this email:
After members of the Atlanta police force assaulted me for jaywalking and imprisoned me at the AHA Conference in January, I got thousands of messages - including some from citizens of Atlanta, who had also suffered at the hands of the police, without the attention or consolation I got. So I drew up a list of about forty questions of public interest raised by my experience - ranging from police training to the siting of road-crossings - and waited patiently for the inquiry the mayor was reported as having ordered. Six months went by without anyone contacting me for testimony. On 4th June, the mayor's office added insult to injury by sending me a letter claiming that I had made an allegation of misconduct against the police (which I had not done, preferring to defer to the mayor's promised inquiry) and claiming to have investigated it and exonerated the force! This was obviously false: you can't conduct an investigation into an allegation that has not been made. Any honest investigation would have taken evidence from me and other witnesses with relevant testimony. The police took evidence neither from me nor from any of the conference-goers whom I know to have useful insights.I have therefore now engaged a law firm to demand that a properly constituted inquiry into the public interest aspects of the case is held. I explicitly do not want anything for myself, and am not seeking damages or compensation; and I have no grudge against the young policeman who initiated the assault on me. I want only to ensure - after what I have been through - that Atlanta gets the policing and urban planning it deserves, and that the voices of people who claim to have been inhumanely treated by the police be heard.
I hope any readers of HNN who were at Atlanta, and experienced the zeal of the police, or who felt the inconvenience of the siting of the crossings, or who witnessed the attack on me, or have any relevant information or comments will help, by letting me know by e-mail to FELIPE.FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO@tufts.edu, and telling me, if they'd be so kind, whether they would be willing for their views to go before the inquiry. (Attendance in person won't be required: testimony can take the form of an affadavit, or a personal statement, or a press report.)
A news story in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution indicates a police internal investigation cleared the police of wrong-doing:
An internal investigation by the Atlanta Police Department into an infamous jaywalking incident has exonerated the officer accused of roughing up a professor.But the bickering about what really happened that day continues.
The 101-page report concluded that Officer Kevin Leonpacher acted appropriately when he arrested distinguished historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto while the professor was jaywalking in downtown Atlanta six months ago.
"[Fernandez-Armesto] wasn't arrested for jaywalking," said Atlanta Police Public Information Manager Judy Pal."He was arrested for disobeying a lawful order from a police officer."
The 57-year-old professor called the investigation"profoundly incompetent.""My goodwill is not inexhaustible," Fernandez-Armesto said in a telephone interview from his home in London."I'm not going to let this go."