GRAHAM – Prosecutors should drop all charges against those who were pepper-sprayed and arrested at a rally days before the 2020 election, one of the rally’s organizers and his lawyer said.

The Rev. Greg Drumwright was the first of those arrested to go to trial, and he was acquitted earlier this week. Speaking at a press conference Thursday afternoon in front of the courthouse in Graham, he said his acquittal shows that the charges leveled after the Oct. 31, 2020, March to the Polls early voting rally were unjustified.

“The charges I was cleared of were pinned on others, and, Alamance County, you must drop all the charges,” he said as the crowd of supporters and other defendants behind him began to chant, “Drop the charges.”

The 2020 rally made national headlines because officers sprayed tear gas and pepper spray directly in the faces of protesters.

“Those protesters and these defendants are my heroes,” Drumwright said.

Prosecutors dropped the charges against most of the others after Drumwright’s acquittal, but two still have charges pending.

One of Drumwright’s attorneys, Jason Keith, said that all who were arrested were merely “peacefully exercising their right to vote.”

“We want accountability for what happened on October 31, 2020, and we need to keep moving and keep fighting,” he said.

Drumwright also spoke on House Bill 40, which would increase the penalties for rioting or inciting a riot.

Because inciting a riot is vaguely worded in state law, critics say the bill would create the risk that people could be arrested merely for attending a protest that results in violence that they took no part in. The bill recently passed the House by a veto-proof majority.

Drumwright called the bill “infringement on civil rights and protesting.”