Judge E. Lynise Bryant (Facebook photo)
Detroit 36th District Court Judge E. Lynise Bryant tossed out a case against Marc Peeples on Tuesday, which his defense attorney referred to as "gardening while black," reports Tom Perkins of Metro Times.
The judge calls the charges "ridiculous" and "troubling."
"[The three white women] should be sitting at the defendant's table for stalking and harassment charges, not Mr. Peeples," she said.
What happened was three white women in 2017 and early 2018 called police dozens of times, making increasingly serious allegations against Peeples, a black man.
Perkins reports:
Peeples was building a community garden on the vacant Hunt Playground on Colton Street adjacent to the State Fairgrounds. One of the women, Deborah Nash, lives across the street from the park, while the others live nearby.
Peeples claimed the women didn't like his project, so they began calling the police, fabricating serious charges when police wouldn't come out for illegal gardening allegations. Those culminated with charges that Peeples was a pedophile, was in the park threatening Nash with a gun, and participated in a drive-by shooting.
Eventually, the Detroit Police Department and Wayne County Prosecutors Office filed and brought three counts of stalking against Peeples.
