Grand jury indicts 16 people charged with felony littering in Asheville's Aston Park
Sarah HonoskyASHEVILLE - All 16 people charged by the Asheville Police Department with felony littering have been indicted by a Buncombe County grand jury, moving a case North Carolina attorneys have called "rare" and "unusual" to Buncombe County Superior Court.
Pip Flickinger and other defendants are charged following December protests calling for sanctuary camping at Aston Park.
"It is extremely bizarre to think about going to a full trial because of seven Little Caesars pizzas, which is like my role in this whole thing," Flickinger said.
Though they declined to comment on the protests or who was there, they said it seemed "unprecedented to have that much energy put into someone bringing pizzas to a park during open hours."
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The protests, which took place in the week leading up to Christmas Day 2021, were billed as "a community art build" by the protesters and were calling for sanctuary camping for the city's homeless population following a series of police sweeps of encampments that winter.
According to a June news release from APD, the protests resulted in the dumping of 2,000 pounds of litter and refuse, and the cleanup "cost taxpayers in the City of Asheville nearly $2,700 with more than 100 man-hours, and required two dump trucks, half a dozen pickup trucks, and other heavy machinery.”
Defendants were indicted on June 28 and a first appearance was held on Aug. 1, according to attorney Martin Moore.
Moore represents five of the defendants and said the Aug. 1 appearance was "very routine." The defendants were not present.
A trial date has not yet been set.
When asked for a comment, Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams said in an emailed statement: "The matters will be continued. I am obligated to make no further out-of-court comment while these matters remain pending."
An APD spokesperson did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment.
Defendants were charged with felony littering and other related charges, including aiding and abetting felony littering or acting in concert to felony littering, over a series of months, beginning in January and ending in May.
Almost all 16 defendants were indicted on June 28 for only the littering charges, according to court documents obtained by the Citizen Times — which is a class I felony when it exceeds 500 pounds.
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One defendant was also indicted for employee larceny, with the grand jury alleging the defendant unlawfully took 20 wooden pallets from their place of work.
According to the indictment, the defendants did:
Intentionally and recklessly place and caused to be placed greater than 500 pounds of litter, to wit: tires, wooden pallets, miscellaneous furniture and other items, on and in Aston Park, property owned and operated by the City of Asheville, a municipality. The litter was not deposited on property designated by the State or its political subdivision for the disposal of garbage and refuse by a person authorized to use the property for that purpose, and was not deposited in a litter receptacle as defined in North Carolina General Statute 14-399 (a) (2).
Photos posted in January on the Asheville Police twitter page show Aston Park following one of the protests — pallets leaned up on their sides bearing slogans, including "people over profit" and "community will keep us safe," wooden chairs, an armchair and other miscellaneous items and signs.
'Rare' and 'unusual'
According to N.C. Court's felony case activity reports going back the last 10 years, there has only been one felony littering case filed in Buncombe County.
Phil Dixon, a professor with the UNC School of Government, said in the scheme of criminal charges, it's a "rare offense," and not one he had seen before.
As a point of interest in the case, he flagged that the alleged 2,000 pounds of litter are being aggregated to apply to everyone.
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"I think that is unusual. There's nothing that I'm aware of that says they can do that, but there's also nothing that says they can't do that," he said. "I think that strikes me as an unusual application of the statute."
Dixon imagined the statute was most commonly used to apply to commercial entities and corporations responsible for illegal dumping.
"I think that opens up a lot of defense arguments to say, ‘I personally didn’t bring 500 pounds of litter anywhere,'" Dixon said.
'We're persisting'
Most of the defendants, including Flickinger, are volunteers with a mutual aid organization, Asheville Survival Program, and part of its Streetside program, which distributed food and gear twice a week in Aston Park to anyone in need, including the city's unhoused population.
Following the charges, 12 of the defendants were issued three-year park bans.
Though 10 attempted to appeal those bans through a Parks and Recreation appeals process in April, all of the bans were upheld.
The individuals are banned from city parks under the 2017 Restricted Access to City Parks policy.
Flickinger said this caused "roadblocks" for some of the Survival Program's advocacy work, preventing volunteers from gathering in parks for food-sharing efforts. Recently, they said, Streetside has moved out of the park to continue doing the work elsewhere in the city.
“In general, I think, we’re persisting," they said.
Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky.