Activist Protesting Abortion Restrictions At Manatee Meeting Arrested

Updated: 1:30 p.m., Wednesday

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — A pro-choice protester faces multiple charges after being arrested during Tuesday’s Manatee County Board of County Commissioners meeting.

During the meeting, commissioners discussed and ultimately approved plans to submit a letter written by Commissioner James Satcher — a conservative minister who initially brought his pro-life initiatives inspired by Texas' so-called "Heartbeat Bill" before the county board in June — to the Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody seeking legal advice on creating local abortion restrictions.

Social justice activist Kimberly Cox of New Port Richey, who was arrested by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, told Patch she’s been charged with peacefully resisting arrest, trespassing, and disrupting a school or religious event.

Cox attended the commission meeting to support the Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida, a group there to protest the county’s anti-abortion initiatives. She livestreamed the meeting, including her arrest, on her Facebook page. (Watch the entire video below.)

In the video, about 2 minutes after the three-hour mark, Cox, who was streaming from her phone, and several activists left the board’s chamber, walked into the lobby of the Manatee County Administration building and then left the building. On the outside steps, they spoke with another protester, a woman, who was leaving the area after being trespassed from the building.

Related Story: Legality Of County Abortion Restrictions To Be Posed To Moody

Cox went back into the building and asked the deputies sitting in the lobby, “Did one of you enforce the trespass for her?”

When the deputies didn’t respond, she asked, “What’s your name and badge number?”

After they didn’t respond again, Cox said, “Legally, in the state of Florida, you have to give me that. What is your name and badge number?”

“Either go inside (the board meeting) or step out of the building,” one of the deputies responded.

Within seconds, he stood up, walked in her direction and reached out toward her.

“Get your hands off me,” Cox can be heard yelling.

“Are you really going to touch her?” another activist asked. “She didn’t do anything.”

As deputies grabbed Cox, pushed her to the ground and handcuffed her, another protester took over her phone’s livestream of the incident and her entire arrest was shared on Facebook.

In the video, Cox yelled, “You don’t have to break my god---- arm, a--hole. You’re breaking my arm.”

The deputies never told her why she was being detained or read her Miranda rights.

As they walked her across the street to the Manatee County Judicial Center, the crowd of protesters followed, shouting “shame” at the deputies and asking, “What’s the charges?”

Cox continued to tell the deputies, “You’re hurting my arm.”

The protesters weren’t allowed to follow her into the building, but they remained outside.

“This is why we’re here. This is exactly why we’re here today,” one activist can be heard on the video. “She came all the way from Pasco (County) to support us and support our reproductive rights. All she was doing was exercising her right to ask for a name and badge number when they declined one of our protesters entering into a public building. This is not acceptable. This is not OK.”

According to the probable cause affidavit from her arrest, which was written by Deputy Kurt Potter, “deputies had no other choice than to take Cox into custody.”

Potter wrote that when Cox was asked to leave the administration building, she “became more aggressive, and started yelling and becoming disruptive to the proceedings, which caused the meeting to take a recess and the room cleared.”

He added, “Cox was again asked to calm down and leave the property in which she refused. Other deputies responded to assist. Deputies attempted to escort her from the building when she again refused and sat on the floor outside the meeting room doors.”

She was released just before 4 a.m. on a $1,500 bond.

Like what you're reading? Invite a friend to subscribe to free Bradenton newsletters and real-time email alerts.

Cox told Patch she left the jail after 4 a.m. Wednesday, just in time to take her father to a surgery he had scheduled.

Her arrest happened “very, very, very quickly,” she said. “I came into the room and asked the man … ‘Did you trespass that woman? What’s your badge number?’ That was it.”

She said her arm still hurts from her arrest and there’s bruising and swelling around her right wrist, where she had been handcuffed.

Cox has been active with Black Lives Matter Pasco County, and this isn’t her first run-in with law enforcement, she said.

During a New Port Richey protest last year, she was knocked to the ground by officers and grabbed around the elbow, injuring her arm, she said. She had to wear a sling for several months after that incident.

Then, one evening in September, she joined St. Petersburg BLM demonstrators on Beach Drive for one of their nightly protests. During that rally, a counter-protestor, Lawrence Davis, who later pointed a gun at two protesters shoved Cox when she attempted to record their confrontation, breaking her tailbone and knocking her unconscious, she said.

As she fell, her head hit a parked car and the ground, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

The entire incident — from Davis shoving Cox to his brandishing a gun at protesters — was captured on video. Davis wasn’t detained that night, though.

Cox later had a contentious interview with St. Petersburg police detectives, reports said. And Davis never agreed to an interview, submitting, instead, a statement through his attorney that said he had been antagonized by the protesters and was the victim.

State prosecutors ultimately didn’t file charges against Davis, saying, “He was justified in pulling the gun,” according to reports.

As for Cox’s arrest in Manatee County Tuesday, she has legal representation as her case moves forward.

Leaders of the Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida said they plan to share videos from the protest and her arrest with county commissioners.

“It happened fast, and it was completely unnecessary. All of this could have been avoided,” Kate Danehy-Samitz said.

Sarah Parker said, “It’s very disheartening (the deputy) escalated that. It didn’t have to be like that.”

She added, “What we saw was a real lapse of judgment and a lack of character (by the deputies.)”

Watch the entire protest at Tuesday's Manatee County Board of County Commissioners meeting and Cox's arrest below: