A black man in Detroit is suing three white women who called the police on him for “gardening while black”.
33-year-old Marc Peeples filed a lawsuit against three white women who repeatedly reported him to police just to stop him from being seen in a public park. The case is being described as “gardening while black,” and the white women falsely accused him of being a pedophile and threatening to kill them.
In the lawsuit filed in Michigan state court last week, Peeples claims the three women — Deborah Nash, Martha Callahan, and Callahan’s granddaughter, Jennifer Morris — “conspired to accuse” him of “various crimes that they knew or had reason to know he did not commit” to ultimately get him “incarcerated or seriously injured by law enforcement.”
Peeples says the accusations started after he built a small community garden at Hunt Park, a public park in their neighborhood. He also worked on some of his neighbors’ lawns by cutting grass and securing their abandoned property. I
t’s said that the three women “had prior plans” for the park and “did not want [Peeples] in the area at all,” the lawsuit stated.
So the women went on to file numerous police reports from July 2017 to May 2018 accusing Peeples of several crimes, including stealing from homes, carrying weapons, and threatening to burn down their homes and kill them, BlackNews reports.
In another incident occurred while Peeples was teaching home-schooled students how to garden. Callahan called 911 to report that he was a convicted pedophile who was not legally allowed to be around children. That call resulted in Peeples being arrested in front of the children and charged with three counts of stalking.
After Peeples was arrested and banned from the park, the women destroyed his garden and requested permission from the city to “implement their own projects” at the Hunt Park.
His case was eventually dismissed at his trial in October 2018 where the judge described the case as “disgusting” and “a waste of the court’s time and resources.”
Despite their case being thrown out, the three women allegedly continued spreading false accusations against Peeples. His lawsuit accuses the women of malicious prosecution, abuse of process, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation and civil distress. It also claims he suffered economic injury and demands the women pay $300,000 in damages, as well as attorneys’ fees and other costs.
Aside from the lawsuit, Peeples is also planning to establish a new garden. A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to support him in improving the farm and other expenses. Donations have gone up to around $55,000, which is far past the initial $5,000 goal.
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