Woman says she was removed from SLC council meeting after addressing members, council explains why
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — A woman said she was removed from a Salt Lake City Council meeting on Tuesday and threatened with a trespassing charge after she brought up the police response to pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Utah.
“It was a total infringement of my rights,” Jenna Martin, a student in Utah, told ABC4.com.
Martin said she has been going to the Salt Lake City Council meetings for “months and months on end.” On May 7, she said she addressed the council and the Salt Lake City mayor, and said her speech was protected under the First Amendment, even if she used strong or offensive language.
“I opened with ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ Because I’m mad, you know?” Martin said.
She said she brought up her concerns to the council after she said some of her friends were injured by police at the protests. Martin said other arrests were unlawful, and that some local leaders were targeted and arrested.
“I referred to Erin Mendenhall’s illegal arrest of Michael Valentine as ‘bulls***’ and that’s when I was escorted out by security,” Martin said.
Martin wrote a statement to the ACLU of Utah after she was removed from the council meeting. In that statement, she said that, according to Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971), part of her First Amendment rights include the right to use certain offensive words and phrases to convey political messages.
Martin said some of her concerns were regarding the use of full riot gear in the police response to protests, the “aggressive detainment” of organizers from the community and the council’s role “in the human rights violations being committed in Gaza.”
Salt Lake City Council responds
The Salt Lake City Council reached out to ABC4.com to explain why Martin was escorted out of the meeting.
A spokesperson said a councilmember read the rules of decorum at the beginning of the meeting, as is standard for all meetings.
Those rules explained that a speaker must address the body and not an individual elected official. One of the rules also mentioned that commenters should avoid the use of “threatening language.”
The council said anyone who violates the rules will be asked to leave.
The full statement from the council was as follows:
The City Council has established fair and clear rules of decorum for our public comment period that apply to everyone, regardless of viewpoint. These rules are read at every meeting, and commenters are informed that if they violate the rules, they will be asked to leave the meeting and may provide their comments in a different forum. In this case, the commenter violated the rules of decorum and was asked to leave the meeting.
Salt Lake City Council on May 7 incident
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