First female judge in Alabama swarmed by cops and arrested for stealing campaign sign
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Faya Rose Touré, a 73-year-old civil rights activist and former judge from Alabama, took the police on a car chase through four city blocks in Selma after they sought to arrest her for allegedly stealing campaign signs in July.
This amounts to: Who gon’ check me boo?
—Nia Wilson’s accused killer appears in court for parole violation—
Toure’ has been in the fight for civil rights for decades as the first Black female judge in Alabama and founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma. Toure’s husband, State Senator Hank Sanders, believes she was allegedly targeted for the minor infraction, The Appeal reports.
“I’ve been in office 35 years and I’ve been running campaigns since 1974 and now I’ve never heard of a single person being arrested for a campaign sign,” Sanders said.
The Selma Police Department reportedly plans to recommend prosecuting Toure to the state attorney general for the misdemeanor, according to the department’s chief.
That means Toure is facing charges of fourth-degree theft and attempting to elude a police officer.
The activist says the police have been slow to her reply to her requests to investigate another incident where she said she said she’s been the target of death threats because of her activism.
Toure said while the city has a policy to prohibit signs from being placed on public rights of way, she alleges a worker was removing signs of a Black candidate Jimmy Nunn who was running for a county probate judge seat but not removing signs of a white candidate Nicholas Switzer.
The worker has reportedly denied removing signs.
Toure said she complained to City Hall in a letter to no avail and then decided defiantly to pull up all of Switzer’s signs from the public rights of way. Then she took to the airwaves of a local radio station to announce where Switzer could pick up his campaign material.
Toure, however was arrested after an officer caught her in the act, said police Chief Spencer Collier. That didn’t stop her though from making him put in the work and go on a police pursuit through Selma.
But she said police are making the chase sound like more than what it actually was. She said she kept driving to ensure witnesses would be around to see what was happening.
“[Collier] made it sound like on the news that what was happening was a big chase,” she told The Appeal.
“How can four blocks be a chase? People advise people if you feel harassed by the cops, you make sure you got a witness.”
This woman is a hero.
“A young Black man was killed last night and all y’all coming after me,” she can be heard saying on video. “Y’all would think I have committed a murder.”
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