Leader of Wichita group calling to defund police arrested for second time, records show

The organizer of a Wichita group calling to defund the police has been arrested for this second time this week, according to jail records.

Project Justice ICT Executive Director Gabrielle Griffie was arrested Thursday night on suspicion of three counts of municipal/county violations and one count of unlawful assembly. The 24-year-old was also arrested on suspicion of unlawful assembly Sunday in connection to an intimidation report that happened July 30 near downtown, records show. It’s unclear from the public portion of the police report exactly what prompted the allegation.

After her first arrest, Griffie said at least three people connected with protests organized by the group were arrested over the weekend after police watched them and others at their homes for hours.

Police said she was the only one arrested in connection to the protests.

She called her first arrest a “blatant scare tactic to try to keep the organizers of Project Justice ICT from marching in the streets.”

At 6:19 p.m. Thursday, Griffie wrote on the Project Justice ICT Facebook page:

“Another one of ours was just arrested and police made contact with someone else,” she wrote. “We need PEOPLE out here. We’re pushing this back to 7PM in the hopes more people will come out.”

She was booked into jail at 8:55 p.m.

The Project Justice ICT Twitter page tweeted at 9:33 p.m. that four protesters were arrested Thursday night before the “start of the march.”

“Three of which we can confirm were not at the (Pop-Up Urban Park)” near Douglas and Broadway, the post says. “Two of which had no intention of participating in the protest tonight.”

The post says they were going to move the protest to the Sedgwick County Jail.

Police did not immediately respond to questions about the arrest.

In the last week, videos posted on Facebook have shown protesters pull at least one person off of a motorcycle and another out of a car that sought to pass through a roundabout.

Other videos have shown protesters marching in the street and nearly being hit by the driver of a truck and them protesting outside of a home that, protesters said, is where city manager Robert Layton lives.

Contributing: Amy Renee Leiker with The Eagle

This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 10:27 PM.