Community activist Mary Kirkendoll grew so frustrated with Smyrna’s town hall question-and-answer session, she stood up and began to leave. Before she got to the door, she turned toward the audience and uttered a profanity.
“This is [expletive],” she said during the April 21, 2009, meeting. “They are never going to tell the truth.”
Kirkendoll was immediately put under arrest and then jailed for more than two hours. Later, she filed a federal lawsuit, alleging her free speech rights had been violated and that she had been falsely arrested and imprisoned.
This week, the city’s insurance carrier agreed to pay $85,000 to Kirkendoll to settle the litigation, city spokeswoman Jennifer Bennett said. The city was not involved in the carrier’s decision to settle, she said.
“I hope that the city and mayor got the message and that no one else will ever be arrested for simply speaking out during a public meeting,” Kirkendoll said Thursday. “I am certainly thankful the lawsuit is over and that I have finally been vindicated.”
Smyrna’s city administrator, Eric Taylor, said, “The lawsuit has been settled, and we are now moving forward to other things.”
One of Kirkendoll’s attorneys, Cynthia Counts of Atlanta, said local officials need to realize that discussions of political issues often grow heated.
“While cursing at a public meeting may be rude, it cannot be the basis for an arrest,” Counts said. “She was arrested for engaging in core political speech that is at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection.”
In her suit, Kirkendoll alleged that her arrest had been orchestrated in retaliation for her prior antagonistic encounters with Smyrna officials in an ongoing political dispute with the city.
Kirkendoll had accused local government of ignoring immigration laws by allowing illegal immigrants to work on city construction projects. During a March 2009 council meeting, Kirkendoll tried to give Mayor Max Bacon a flag of Mexico and asked him which flag he wanted to be flown over City Hall, the suit said. Bacon did not accept the flag and ruled her out of order.
A month later, Kirkendoll was cited for violating a city ordinance that made it a crime to “behave in any way contrary to public peace or morality to the disturbance of any citizen of the city.” The charges were later dismissed, and the ordinance has since been repealed, Counts said.
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