Prosecutors Quietly Drop Charges Against White Firefighter Who Threatened Black Couple With A Gun

Carges were abrupt­ly dropped against a Savannah, Georgia, fire­fight­er accused of threat­en­ing a black cou­ple at gun­point and telling them his badge enti­tled him to kill them with impunity.

The Daily Beast report­ed Wednesday that charges against Barry Arnold were inex­plic­a­bly dropped in September after the gov­ern­ment failed to pros­e­cute. The cou­ple who bore the brunt of Arnold’s drunk­en, racist melt­down want to know why. In October of 2015, Marquist Curtis and his fiancée, Amber Phillips were eat­ing din­ner at a Savannah Applebee’s restau­rant when they heard a drunk­en and agi­tat­ed Arnold — who was vot­ed 2014 Savannah Firefighter of the Year — use racist slurs against his serv­er, a black woman. Then, when he not­ed Curtis and Phillips, he began to direct his ire at them.

“He’s say­ing, ‘I got those black ass ribs just like those ni**ers,’” Curtis told the Beast. “He looked over at my fiancée and said ‘I can’t stand those ni**ers.’” Curtis report­ed­ly asked Arnold to “calm down,” accord­ing to police doc­u­ments, but Arnold became bel­liger­ent and com­bat­ive, called Curtis a “ni**er” and tack­led him. The dis­pute spilled out into the restaurant’s park­ing lot where Arnold retrieved a hand­gun from his car and point­ed it at Curtis and Phillips, say­ing that he would kill them. “He’s walk­ing over with his gun and badge, say­ing, ‘I’ve got the right to kill you ni**ers,’” Curtis recount­ed. Restaurant employ­ees, he said, locked the door behind them so they could not return inside to safe­ty. Arnold was charged with mis­de­meanor counts of dis­or­der­ly con­duct, pub­lic drunk­en­ness and point­ing a gun at another.

The Chatham County dis­trict attorney’s office told Kate Briquelet at the Beast that the inci­dent is still under inves­ti­ga­tion, but online records show that no new charges have been filed and that no fur­ther action has been tak­en by pros­e­cu­tors. Curtis told Briquelet that he is skep­ti­cal that city pros­e­cu­tor Meg Heap will pur­sue the charges against Arnold. “We just want jus­tice. No more, no less,” Curtis said. “They’re try­ing to put what he did on hold.” Curtis also said that he had to find out through his attor­ney that charges have been dropped against Arnold.

“Nobody con­tact­ed us,” he said. Heap’s office said that yes, the mis­de­meanor charges were dropped, but they are con­sid­er­ing pur­su­ing felony charges in a high­er court. Curtis’ attor­ney Will Claiborne told the Beast that pros­e­cu­tors are drag­ging their feet. “You’ve got a cap­tain in the fire depart­ment who pulls a gun on these peo­ple and says, ‘With this badge and this gun, I get to kill peo­ple and get away with it,’” he said. “The police at the scene stop him while he’s try­ing to dri­ve away.” Claiborne believes that Arnold should have been charged with dri­ving under the influ­ence, aggra­vat­ed assault and ter­ror­ist threats. He feels that Arnold’s race and city posi­tion are fac­tors in the lack of offi­cial action. “We want to raise pub­lic aware­ness that this sort of injus­tice hap­pens in 2016,” Claiborne said. “What would hap­pen to any­body else oth­er than a white cap­tain in the fire depart­ment is just shocking.”

He point­ed out that if Curtis had pulled a gun of his own in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances, “he’d still be sit­ting in jail.” Arnold was ter­mi­nat­ed from his job with the fire depart­ment in the wake of the incident.

http://​www​.raw​sto​ry​.com/​2​0​1​6​/​1​2​/​p​r​o​s​e​c​u​t​o​r​s​-​q​u​i​e​t​l​y​-​d​r​o​p​-​c​h​a​r​g​e​s​-​a​g​a​i​n​s​t​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​f​i​r​e​f​i​g​h​t​e​r​-​w​h​o​-​t​h​r​e​a​t​e​n​e​d​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​c​o​u​p​l​e​-​w​i​t​h​-​g​un/

UPDATE : Ex-fire­fight­er who threat­ened to kill black cou­ple indict­ed on 7 felony counts

The for­mer Savannah fire­fight­er who went on a drunk­en, racist ram­page in an Applebee’s restau­rant and men­aced a black cou­ple with a gun has been indict­ed on sev­en felony counts of aggra­vat­ed assault.

Savannah Now report­ed Thursday morn­ing that for­mer Capt. Barry Arnold — Savannah’s 2014 Firefighter of the Year — was indict­ed by a Chatham County grand jury for attack­ing and threat­en­ing to kill Marquist Curtis and Amber Phillips on October of 2015. “Marquist and Amber are glad this has final­ly been done,” said Will Claiborne, Curtis and Phillips’ attor­ney to WSAV. “Frustrated that it took so long. They’re hap­py to final­ly see the process move for­ward. They are one step clos­er to obtain­ing some jus­tice to what hap­pened to them and are look­ing for­ward to their day in court.” Arnold is cur­rent­ly charged with 7 felonies: Two counts of aggra­vat­ed assault, two counts of pos­ses­sion of a firearm, pub­lic drunk­en­ness, sim­ple bat­tery and dis­or­der­ly con­duct. Raw Story report­ed Wednesday that the four mis­de­meanor charges orig­i­nal­ly filed against Arnold had been qui­et­ly dropped. The vic­tims and their sup­port­ers thought that Arnold’s race and con­nec­tions to city gov­ern­ment had ensured that pros­e­cu­tor Meg Heap and the dis­trict attorney’s office were drag­ging their feet with regards to the case.

On a Friday night in October, 2015, Curtis and Williams found them­selves threat­ened with mur­der dur­ing a racial­ly charged run-in with a drunk­en Arnold. After Arnold vio­lent­ly attacked Curtis inside the restau­rant, the alter­ca­tion spilled out­side, where — bran­dish­ing a gun and his fire depart­ment badge — Arnold told the vic­tims he could mur­der them and get away with it under the law.

Claiborne said that when Curtis and Phillips tried to flee back inside to get away, they found that restau­rant work­ers had locked the door.

“If you have a drunk­en vir­u­lent racist in your estab­lish­ment you have an oblig­a­tion to every­one there to make that estab­lish­ment safe,” the attor­ney said. The restau­rant is liable for its han­dling of the inci­dent, Claiborne said, and arrest­ing offi­cers on the night of the crime only charged Arnold with four mis­de­meanors and did not cite him for attempt­ing to dri­ve away from the scene while intox­i­cat­ed. “Law enforce­ment on the scene should’ve appro­pri­ate­ly charged Mr. Arnold. He should’ve been tak­en imme­di­ate­ly to jail,” Claiborne said. “He should’ve been booked on felony charges. If any­one else, par­tic­u­lar­ly an African American, had com­mit­ted these acts that indi­vid­ual would be put direct­ly in jail and prob­a­bly would still be there.”

No tri­al date is cur­rent­ly set for Arnold. http://​www​.raw​sto​ry​.com/​2​0​1​6​/​1​2​/​e​x​-​f​i​r​e​f​i​g​h​t​e​r​-​w​h​o​-​t​h​r​e​a​t​e​n​e​d​-​t​o​-​k​i​l​l​-​b​l​a​c​k​-​c​o​u​p​l​e​-​i​n​d​i​c​t​e​d​-​o​n​-​7​-​f​e​l​o​n​y​-​c​o​u​n​ts/