The jobs protester whose April arrest by Baltimore police was caught on videotape appeared in Baltimore City District Court today, where a judge granted his request for a jury trial.

Thomas Threatt – who is facing multiple charges including resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, loitering and disturbing the peace – was given a June 26 trial date in Baltimore City Circuit Court by Judge Gregory Sampson.

“I’m not pleading guilty, I didn’t do nothing wrong,” Threatt said, outside the courthouse, as about a dozen supporters picketed the courthouse calling the police action against Threatt “abusive.”

A YouTube video of the Mar. 29 demonstration near Johns Hopkins Hospital in East Baltimore shows Threatt prone on the street, with officers kneeling on his back and neck and other officers repeatedly spraying Mace, point-blank, in his face. At one point, an officer grabs Threatt’s hair and yanks his head back before the Mace is sprayed in his eyes.

Two of the three other people arrested that day – William Simmons and Richie Armstrong, an organizer for Community Churches United – also appeared in District Court today. Their cases were postponed until July 30.

The fourth defendant, Earl King, failed to appear in court when his name was called.

Threatt’s attorney, Arthur M. Frank, said his client was the only one of the four charged with resisting arrest, which carries a maximum penalty of three years, making his case eligible to be heard by a jury.

By moving Threatt’s case up to Circuit Court, Frank said, he was hoping it would receive personal attention from City State’s Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein.

“I’m hoping Mr. Bernstein looks at [the video] and dismisses it,” Frank said.

City police officials have said the officers’ handling of the protest – aimed at the entity developing the Hopkins biopark, East Baltimore Development Inc. – was appropriate.

Threatt said today he thought jurors would give him a fairer hearing than a judge because they might be able to identify with him better.

“They’d be regular working people. They would know what it means to work a job to support a family,” he said.

“I Just Fell in with the Fellas”

When he heard about the gathering (organized by Community Churches, an affiliate of Laborers International Union of North America), Threatt recalled, he thought it was a meeting that would possibly lead to a construction job.

“Someone gave me a card about it,” he said, adding that he was surprised to find it was a demonstration and had never been in one before.

“But anything that’s going to make me be able to get an honest job, I figured, I’ll do,” he said. “I just fell in with the fellas.”

He said he had been trying to obey police orders and get onto the sidewalk when a police officer “grabbed me and they started beating me up.”

Threatt, 42, of the 3800 block of Beehler Ave., said he is a construction worker who has not had a regular job in 13 years but has been self-employed.

“I’m trying to get a job but it’s hard – they say they want you to have worked for a company for two or three years,” he said.

“But I know how to shovel dirt and I know how to break concrete.”

Jobs for Locals

The April demonstration was one of several held at EBDI by Armstrong’s group, which has been saying that the project has broken its promises to create jobs and other benefits for local residents.

Protest at EBDI leads to arrests from Maryland Daily Record on Vimeo.

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As part of the decade-old, $1.8 billion project, whole city blocks around Hopkins have been leveled and more than 700 families have been relocated. One office building and several apartment buildings have been completed.

The April demonstration took place outside a $170 million laboratory being built for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Last week a coalition of state and city elected officials held a demonstration of their own outside the EBDI offices and called for a halt to the project until more local residents could be hired.

According to a report of the news conference in the Baltimore Sun, State Del. Talmadge Branch cited an analysis of hiring for the state’s lab project that showed that “of the $57.5 million in contracts awarded so far, only $13.4 million went to businesses in Baltimore and only $4.4 million to local minority-owned businesses.”