A Connecticut activist who was arrested twice over the summer by a state trooper for protesting on a highway overpass had her charges dropped amid a high-profile lawsuit about where you can conduct freedom of speech.
Now the lawyers representing 72-year-old Katherine Hinds say they will be filing a formal complaint against the Connecticut State Police for what they’re calling misconduct on the part of Trooper Joshua Jackson.
“People have been asking me if I’m happy and that’s not quite the word. I feel relieved, but saddened that this is where we are,” Hinds said. “I’ll take a small win and maybe this will help other people be able to take a step forward. I feel really grateful that I had such a great team around me including the people on the bridges and a great legal team around me. That makes me feel more emboldened to do what I’m doing, because I know I can.”
A 71-year-old CT activist has been arrested twice by state police. Her lawyers allege retribution.
“We do not comment on judicial matters or decisions made by prosecutors or judges,” a state police spokesperson told the Courant in response to the charges being dismissed.
The Hamden resident was arrested twice for participating in protests on highway overpasses as part of a nationwide campaign. Hinds, a member of the progressive group Visibility Brigade, has been protesting President Donald Trump and Elon Musk from highway overpasses around the New Haven area.
State police alleged that Hinds and her fellow protestors were in violation of Connecticut Department of Transportation regulations, claimed that protesting on overpasses is dangerous for drivers and may cause unnecessary distractions or incidents. In addition, state police alleged that signs cannot be attached to overpasses because of risk of falling onto vehicles below.
Hinds, who was arrested by Jackson twice, has maintained she has been the victim of harassment. Seven other protestors have been ticketed by troopers but those were also later dropped, according to Hinds’ lawyers, Christopher Mattei, Margaret Donovan and Douglas Morabito.
ACLU files lawsuit after series of controversial arrests stemming from protests over CT highways
On Monday, Hinds walked into a courtroom in New Haven where charges against her were dropped. Hinds said she feels “relieved” by the speed in which the case was dismissed, but wary that the trooper involved has not been disciplined.
State police have backed Jackson and said claimed that he was justified in arresting Hinds.
Hinds was facing several charges including second-degree criminal trespass, second-degree breach of peace and unauthorized signs on a highway for what her lawyers said was “peacefully holding a sign on a public sidewalk.”
“I don’t feel vindicated, in part, because the individual trooper that caused all of this hasn’t been addressed,” Hinds said. “The state will say they changed their training, but we don’t see any evidence of that. I feel like it’s getting worse. But it makes me more resolved to keep doing it and say this isn’t right.”
She said she plans on returning to the same overpass she was arrested on as soon as Wednesday.
The dismissal of Hinds’ charges comes amid a high-profile ACLU lawsuit against the Connecticut DOT commissioner Garrett Eucalitto and Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection commissioner Ronnell Higgins. ACLU officials said they got involved to prevent DOT and state police officials from forbidding people to display protest signs on streets and sidewalks.
The plaintiffs in the suit, 46-year-old Erin Quinn and 71-year-old Robert Marra, are also activists with the Visibility Brigade in the New Haven area. U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill is overseeing the case.
“I think it’s very significant that the state’s attorneys office recognized very early on that it could not proceed with a criminal case here,” Mattei said. “I think it did that for a couple of reasons. Number one we pointed out very serious omissions and misrepresentations in the arrest warrant application used to support Katherine’s arrest.
“That would have made it impossible for the state’s attorneys to rely on Trooper Jackson in any prosecution,” Mattei added. “We also pointed out the real Constitutional problems in this case. On those two dates there was no evidence of any impact of traffic, even if that were a legitimate basis for arresting her. So there weren’t any factual basis in which they could prevail.”
Following the federal lawsuit filing against Connecticut officials, Connecticut State Police released body-worn camera footage of interactions between protestors and law enforcement and rolled out new training for troopers. But Hinds’ lawyers said the ACLU lawsuit is necessary to bring more clarity so these kind of issues don’t continue to happen.
“I don’t want to speak for the lawyers handing the ACLU case, but I think what the outcome here may show is that there is a real cost to not having clarity around this,” Mattei said. “There still seems to be a lot of room for law enforcement discretion to take an action against protestors for really conceptual reasons.
“There was some suggestion that if protestors are viewed by law enforcement to be having some impact on traffic, that could be the basis for an arrest,” he said. “Now it’s not clear what offense they would be committing or how they would be responsible for how other people are reacting to their constitutionally protected First Amendment speech. I do think the dismissal in this case may highlight for Judge Underhill how improper motives on behalf of law enforcement officers can still result in a real killing of speech.”
Donovan said the judge’s comments in the case are consistent with the federal ACLU lawsuit. The ACLU’s complaint cites 2013 protests against then-President Barack Obama, during which protestors attached signs to fencing on the overpass and waved to passing motorists, as well as a 2021 assembly of firefighters on overpasses to honor a public employee who died at work. Both protests took place without incident, the complaint notes.
“The judge’s comments on the record are totally consistent with the ACLU’s argument that you have yellow ribbons, flag displays and officer memorials on highway overpasses all the time,” Donovan said. “Also in the ACLU’s complaint, which Chris and I used in our conversations with the state’s attorney, is there was an article from 10 years ago showing anti-Obama protestors on the Howard Avenue overpass affixing signs to fences. So if I had to guess, Judge Underhill is probably wondering if this is going to continue to be a problem and if an injunction is necessary or not.”
Hinds filed an earlier complaint in July against Jackson for what she described as being the victim of “harassment” after several visits from him while out protesting. Now her lawyers say new information has come to light that will be part of a new formal complaint.
“Our plan is to file a new complaint with the state police arising from what we now know to be Trooper Jackson’s conduct, some of which was not known to Katherine when she filed her initial complaint against him,” Mattei said. “That includes what we consider inaccuracies in the arrest warrant application as well as the details of her arrest, which we believe was out of line for misdemeanor offenses.”
Stephen Underwood can be reached at sunderwood@courant.com.
