Lawsuit: Conversation with Springfield officer about noose left woman terrified, violated her civil rights

A Springfield police officer terrified a woman and violated her civil rights while dismissing her concerns about a skeleton on a noose that sparked a protest in Thurston, a federal lawsuit claims.

Ashley Carr, who lived on Bluebelle Way in Springfield until last July, has sued the city of Springfield and Officer Joseph Burke, who she alleges unlawfully detained her and harassed her based on her race.

The lawsuit claims Burke questioned whether Carr, a Black woman and single mother of three, accused her and a friend who was with her of “not belonging in that neighborhood and of being with ‘that mob,’ ” referring to the activist group Black Unity.

A neighbor who decorates for Halloween year-round hung a skeleton on a noose just days before the conversation, the lawsuit says, but Burke dismissed her concerns while speaking on the phone with the neighbor.

Thurston protest:Protesters clash with police, others at march in Springfield

Burke was friendly and familiar with the neighbor on the phone and “solicitous and openly supportive of the noose,” the complaint reads.

“In contrast, Officer Burke’s tone and demeanor toward the two Black women was accusatory, authoritative, as well as dismissive of their concerns about the noose,” the lawsuit states.

Burke accused them of lying that the neighbor had just put up the noose and said they were creating a “false narrative for your own propaganda efforts,” according to a transcript of part of the conversation included in the lawsuit.

Carr and her friend were “afraid as they witnessed the white officer speak to their white neighbor by first name and justify that the noose was an appropriate decoration because the white neighbor claimed it had been there for four years,” the complaint says.

Part of the blame rests on the city, the lawsuit adds, for failing to “properly train its officers in how to treat Black people and those involved in Black causes and assemblies in a racially mixed situation.”

“Race must never be a factor when deciding whom to approach, stop, intimidate or insult one’s political views. In this case race and racial politics were the sole factors in defendant Burke making the decisions he made regarding plaintiff,” the complaint reads.

City of Springfield spokeswoman Amber Fossen said Thursday the city is aware of the lawsuit but can't comment on pending litigation. 

After the conversation with Burke, Carr didn’t attend a July 29 protest focused on the noose and then left the house on July 30. Her children were too afraid to stay in the house and stayed with their father for a month.

The family hasn’t returned since — friends, acquaintances and other helped them move and took care of the family’s pets.

There have been lasting consequences, the complaint claims — the family has suffered emotional trauma, Carr lost her deposit when breaking her lease, she’s reduced her work hours and needs increased psychiatric care and her children had to change schools.

Carr is asking for $250,000 to cover lost money and emotional damages and to deter others from copying Burke’s behavior.

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Neighbors used racial slurs as summer protests started

Carr's issues in her previous home started a few weeks after the May 25, 2020, murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, according to court documents.

By early June 2020, two “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, which have been adopted by white supremacist groups, had gone up in nearby neighborhoods.

Carr’s neighbors frequently used racial slurs, the complaint reads, and “made terrifying statements of intentions to take their guns and ‘take back [their] land.’ ”

She reached out to her white landlady for help but never heard back after an initial promise to look into mediation, the lawsuit says.

After a Black Unity leader was hit by a white man driving his car toward a children’s march on June 28, 2020, Carr heard her neighbors say it was “hilarious” and “funny” the man was hit by the car and that “he ‘had it coming,’ ” the complaint reads.

On July 24, 2020, Carr hosted a meeting of the Willamette Racism Response Network, also known as WRRN, at her home. Seven people attended, and all but one were Black or brown.  

During the meeting, the lawsuit claims, her neighbor who had hung the noose was watching and listening and a police officer “rolled by slowly and checked them out without stopping.”

Woman thought noose was 'meant to scare her'

A friend and member of WRRN was driving by within days of the meeting and noticed the noose then pointed it out to Carr.

She was shocked — the neighbors’ house had always made her uncomfortable, but she took the noose to be “racially motivated and meant to scare her,” the lawsuit reads.

Carr posted to Facebook the next day. That post circulated and drew outrage, leading to the protest called “The Noose is a Nuisance.”

As the protest was forming, Carr started feeling unsafe and friends watched the house for a few days. The complaint says they stopped after police accosted a man who was sitting in his car outside her home to make sure she and her children were safe.

Carr learned about the protest on July 28, 2020, while out at lunch with a friend, the complaint says, and when they returned to her home after their meal they noticed Burke pull up in front of the house with the noose in an unmarked car.

Burke approached Carr and her friend as they were sitting in the car and immediately started accusing Carr’s friend of harassing the neighbor and being in the neighborhood uninvited, the complaint says.

Their conversation is recorded on cellphones, and a transcript of part of the interaction is included in the complaint.

During the part of the conversation included in the lawsuit, Burke says people are out to “cancel” the neighbor and destroy his livelihood and gives the neighbor a heads up that there’s a car “associated with the (Black Lives Matter) movement” across the street from his house.

“It's all pretty ridiculous, but I'm here outside your house,” Burke tells the neighbor. “If you have a moment, can you return?”

Burke talks to both Carr and her friend in person and the neighbor over the phone at the same time and accuses the woman of lying about the noose having just been put up.

Though the neighbor claimed the noose had been up for years, he removed it after the conversation with Burke, the complaint says.

As Burke is on the phone with the neighbor, Carr and her friend request support from witnesses.

Several people showed up, the lawsuit says, and stayed with Carr to support her.

Woman was too afraid to attend protest

Carr did not attend the protest in Thurston on July 29, 2020.

She “remained in her home with the lights off and curtains closed and monitored the front of her house through her Ring doorbell” because she was afraid, the lawsuit says.

The Thurston protest lasted several hours and turned into a clash between protesters, police and counterprotesters.

There’s an open lawsuit related to the way Springfield police treated Black Unity members and fellow protesters, and a use-of-force expert found police could have adjusted their response to avoid the conflict.

Read more:

• Lawsuit: Springfield police violated civil rights, denied equal protection during Thurston protest
• Use-of-force expert: Springfield police could have avoided Thurston protest conflict

Carr's lawsuit relates not to the protest, but to Burke's behavior the day before. 

The lawsuit alleges his actions violated Carr's rights to speech, assembly and equal protection, her right to be free from unlawful detention and a protected liberty interested arising from her right to privacy and to be left alone. 

There's also a racial bias claim against the city for failure to properly train officers. 

NAACP speaks about lawsuit 

The Eugene/Springfield NAACP, though not a party to the lawsuit, conducted a news conference Thursday in Eugene because "we are sympathetic to this issue," said Eric Richardson, president of the local chapter. 

"We know that any time we bring clarity to this issue or any time we get victories that are asking for the elimination of these types of incidents in our community, that everybody's safer," Richardson said. "Right now there's an issue with trust in our institutions and in our community, and it all has to do with this underlying element of racism."  

Carr and attorney Brian Michaels, chair of the Eugene/Springfield NAACP redress committee, attended the news conference. Carr did not speak at the conference.

Michaels compared displaying a noose to displaying a swastika, a symbol he said white Americans would immediately understand as hateful. 

"As long as this complaint might be — 24 pages — it's not nearly long enough to fully project to white America what Black people have to go through when they see this noose and what it means to them and how the hatred and violence exists right there," Michaels said. 

Eugene Councilman Greg Evans also spoke, telling a story of his great uncle's lynching by a group of white men in South Carolina in 1915.

"We need to educate people about these kinds of symbols, what effect it has not just on African Americans but the entire community," Evans said. "The fact is, this still continues on to this day. It continues in this community."

Reporter Adam Duvernay contributed to this report.

Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.