When Jamie Bullock was arrested during a Black Lives Matter march on the Fourth Of July last year, she cried uncontrollably for around 10 minutes as she sat in the backseat of a Tampa Police Department squad car.
A friend, who was also arrested, sat next to her in the car and tried to console her.
But the outpouring of grief from the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the police-related death of her own brother, flowed down her cheeks uncontrollably.
During the July 4 march on Dale Mabry Highway, Bullock had remained strong as she watched her friends attacked and arrested by bicycle police. She checked on her friends, asking, “What did they do?” as several officers held one of her friends on the ground.
When her turn came, police took her to the ground, grabbed her braids, and pushed her face into the hot pavement while handcuffing her. She couldn’t breathe until the officers picked her up to take her to the car. She was just 21-years-old at the time.
Bullock could hear her friends calling out to her as the police arrested her.
“It felt good to hear their voices, but there was also a wave of hopelessness that washed over me,” she told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
Bullock was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer—a third-degree felony that is punishable by up to 5 years in prison—along with resisting arrest and obstructing a city roadway, both misdemeanors.
A plea offer that would reduce Bullock’s charges to a misdemeanor was made, but having an arrest on her record has already affected her life in an extremely negative way.
Bullock feels she was expressing her constitutional right to free speech, so she has pleaded not guilty.
The Hillsborough County State Attorney’s office has now filed a motion “In Limine,” which seeks to suppress what Michelle Lambo—Bullock’s defense attorney—can talk about in court. The motion seeks to remove any discussion of First Amendment and constitutional rights, along with discussion of police behavior that day and the fact that Bullock had no previous criminal record. The State Attorney’s office, led by Andrew Warren, declined to comment on the motion, as the case is ongoing.
On Tuesday morning, Aug. 24, Lambo and the state will argue the motion and set a date for trial.
Bullock maintains her innocence. She thinks that the charges are ramped up and limiting what her lawyer can speak about in her defense is an attempt by the state to make an example out of her. A recent national study supports her suspicions and shows that BLM protesters around the country were targeted by police officers and the U.S. legal system throughout the past year.
For Bullock, the arrest has led to job and housing insecurity, along with mental wounds that she’s still working to heal.
A life disrupted
Prior to the protest, Bullock was a photographer for a local company but had to leave the job due to COVID-19. The felony arrest shows up on her background checks, and she lost several job opportunities over the past year until she found a job that hired her despite the charge.
Bullock had to move out of her old house, and finding a new one was hell. When she finally found a landlord who would accept her even with the arrest, she had to pay double the deposit to move in.
Bullock has been going to therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder for the past year, but still, every time she sees the police, the hair stands up on the back of her neck.
She wants to be able to concentrate on her rug-making business, on uplifting local artists, on enjoying playtime with her cat and binge-watching TV shows with her boyfriend, and on her goal of becoming a therapist. But everything she does is affected by the charges. After the protests, she stopped taking her classes at Hillsborough Community College because of the stress.
As her trial approaches, her anxiety is rising because of the harsh sentence that could be imposed if she is convicted. She has little faith in the American carceral system’s treatment of Black people, which is why she was protesting in the first place last year.
A long time coming
Bullock—now 22 years old—went to her first protest in March of 2020, and she felt like her life had been leading up to the moment. She had remembered the killing of Trayvon Martin and how it made her feel, but she was too young at the time to really get involved.
In October of 2019, Bullock says she lost her brother after he attempted to commit a theft. Her brother had a felony on his record and couldn’t get a job. He applied to so many places, she says, but no one would accept him with a criminal record. So he had no money and tried to steal from a vehicle. Bullock says that when police arrived at the scene, he took off running and that the police say they found him dead, with a gun next to him.
They claimed it was a suicide, but Bullock has yet to see any footage or evidence from the incident. This stayed with her, deep in her heart.
Then, when George Floyd was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin and his accomplices, Bullock knew that she had to join the worldwide movement of millions of people fighting back against police terror.
Throughout the summer, she faced multiple harmful scenarios with the cops. She was even maced while standing on a public sidewalk as she filmed TPD brutalizing her friends. She took several cold showers that day but her skin still burned and she couldn’t sleep. But she kept coming out to protest afterward because she was determined to find justice.
During the Fourth of July protest, Bullock says she remained completely peaceful, as did her fellow protesters while they marched that day.
Bullock’s attorney points out that both TPD helicopter video, bodycam video, and witness video shows that the protesters were doing just that, holding a peaceful march until the bicycle police plowed into the crowd and began macing and arresting people, even body-slamming one of them who was asking, “Why are they being arrested?” into a megaphone.
In the midst of this altercation, Bullock’s life changed forever.
Taking a stand
Despite her fear of going to prison, Bullock says she can’t admit to committing a crime when she feels she was only fighting for her human rights and those of others.
Her cause last year was in the name of her family, her friends, and Black lives everywhere, she says.
What hurts the most is that she hasn’t seen much change in her city.
“I feel like the police and the politicians of our city just wanted us to shut up, and our community hasn’t seen substantial change over the past year,” Bullock says.
During the Fourth of July march, BLM protesters were carrying a “Defund the Police” banner, which is part of a national call to move funds from police departments to other public services such as housing.
But instead of hearing that call, Tampa increased funding for its police department more than any other major city in the U.S.
Although the charges have drastically changed her life, the encouragement she receives from friends and family has given her courage.
Bullock feels that taking a stand in this trial might make an impact, not just for her, but for all those whose voices aren’t heard.
“There are so many people, not just Black people, who are abused by the police and discarded by the system we live in,” Bullock says. “We should be able to live in peace, without this kind of treatment. I have to stand up for what’s right.”
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