A Birmingham civil rights lawyer said this week’s arrests of protesters in Homewood echo what happened in Hoover five years ago following the death of a fatal police shooting in the Riverchase Galleria.

It’s important, said attorney Richard Rice, to remember not only about the right to protest but also about what Alabama has learned before and risks forgetting again.

“It’s hard not to see echoes of 2020 in what’s happening now,” Rice said, referring to the protests in Hoover where nearly 100 people were arrested following the police killing of E.J. Bradford.

“Back then, young people took to the streets to demand answers. Instead, they got handcuffed.”

Rice, who defended those protestors, said he worked to decriminalize their actions by negotiating alternatives to prosecution.

In many cases, charges were dropped in exchange for completion of a civic education program.

“That experience taught us that protest doesn’t have to lead to punishment,” Rice said. “It can lead to dialogue and even policy change.”

Five women – two Black, two white and one Asian – were arrested during a protest Wednesday night. Four of them were charged with disorderly conduct.

The fifth, Celida Soto who posted a video as she was handcuffed in a police car, was charged with disorderly conduct, inciting to riot and resisting arrest.

Under Alabama law, a person commits the crime of inciting to riot if he or she commands, solicits, incites or urges another person to engage in tumultuous and violent conduct of a kind likely to cause or create a grave risk of public terror or alarm.

Multiple protests have been held in the month since 18-year-old Jabari Peoples was fatally shot by police at Homewood Soccer Park.

Homewood police say a veteran officer, who has not been publicly identified, approached the vehicle to investigate because of what police say was a recent increase in criminal activity in and around the city’s athletic complexes.

The officer, police say, smelled marijuana and ordered Peoples and his female friend out of the vehicle.

Police say the encounter ended with Peoples resisting, breaking away from the officer as he tried to handcuff him, and grabbing a gun from the driver’s side door pocket.

The officer shot Peoples, who was pronounced dead a short time later at UAB Hospital.

Peoples’ family and attorney Leroy Maxwell and Ben Crump disagreed with that narrative, saying that Peoples wasn’t armed and didn’t resist.

The Homewood Police Department turned the investigation over to ALEA, which is standard policy for many officer-involved shootings.

ALEA denied the family’s request to see the footage, saying release of the video footage would jeopardize the ongoing investigation.

Though Alabama state provides a way for families to view body camera and dash cam videos, the same law also allows law enforcement to withhold the footage for investigative purposes.

There have been several protests following the fatal shooting, including at the Homewood Police Department, ALEA’s office in west Homewood, Homewood City Hall and during the World Police and Fire Games in the Birmingham area.

On Wednesday night, roughly 30 to 40 people gathered at Homewood Soccer Park at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday as part of ongoing demonstrations.

The protesters met at the park and then caravanned in vehicles to the nearby Circle K convenience store at the Intersection of Columbiana Road and Lakeshore Parkway.

The group carried out a peaceful demonstration at the intersection for about 20 minutes when, police say, one of the demonstrators walked into eastbound traffic, followed by multiple other protesters.

Once they began to obstruct traffic, police said, five people were taken into custody.

“Protestors are once again being arrested for demanding the release of footage connected to a police shooting that left a young person dead,” Rice said.

“The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency…has said the video cannot be made public at this time. Community members say that delay erodes trust.

Rice warns that the pattern is too familiar.

“A young Black man, only a teenager, is killed under questionable circumstances. There’s no transparency,” he said. “People gather peacefully to demand accountability. And the response is arrest and silence.”

Rice argues that both the legal and law enforcement systems need to do better.

“The power to take a life is the most serious authority we grant the state. It has to come with transparency, independent oversight, and immediate answers, especially when the incident doesn’t involve a violent crime,” he said.

“We’re talking about someone’s child.”

Timely release of video evidence and swift, independent investigations into use-of-force incidents reduce public tension and ensure that justice is both done and seen to be done, Rice said.

Rice also points to the responsibilities of protestors: to remain nonviolent, organized, and committed to civil discourse.

“But let’s be clear,” he said, “it’s not the protest that creates the crisis, it’s the system’s refusal to be accountable.”

Transparency and accountability are foundational to restoring and maintaining public trust.

The issue, he says, isn’t just about what happened in Hoover or Homewood. It’s about whether the institutions sworn to protect the public are willing to listen when the public demands to be heard.

“A just society cannot exist without the protection of protest rights and the commitment to ethical, transparent law enforcement,” Rice said. “This is how we uphold the rule of law. This is how we move forward.”