MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The attorney for the man accused of running his car into protesters in Midtown last Friday spoke out for the first time Wednesday, and his words weren’t what many expected.
Attorney Blake Ballin has defended some high-profile clients, but in this case, he said he agrees with the protesters, and his client Beau Albauer should’ve been taken to jail the night of the incident.
When people took to the streets of Midtown Friday night, they chanted about equal treatment by police.
And then some of them found themselves fighting for it right there.
Michael Working is a local attorney who watched the protest. He said he saw multiple drivers, including Albauer, try to plow into through the crowd, and he got frustrated.
“About 10 or 15 minutes later, when the crowd had moved away, the police were letting him go,” Working said.
In fact, police did let Albauer go with a traffic citation. The district attorney filed felony charges three days later.
That’s why Ballin was in court Wednesday.
“Mr. Albauer was trying to get through this protest,” Ballin said. “He was not trying to hurt anybody.”
READ MORE: Protesters want accountability for driver accused of driving into Midtown crowd
But even Albauer’s own defense attorney admitted his client got off easy because of his race.
“I fully believe had he been a black male, he would’ve been pulled from his car,” Ballin said. “He would’ve been possibly thrown to the ground. He would’ve been charged and taken to jail that day. He was treated differently because of the color of his skin. I truly believe that.”
That’s a stark contrast to what another man said happened to him after he was arrested and taken to jail during protests that escalated a week earlier.
Ballin said the police department had enough evidence to treat his client the same way.
“The existence of probable cause for their purpose of arrest, that all existed at the scene,” Ballin said. “It’s shocking to me as a human being, as a defense lawyer, as a citizen that things like this are going on.”
Ballin said his client did not intend to hurt anyone and called the ordeal a “tense situation.”
WREG has asked the Memphis Police Department multiple times for a response to allegations of unequal treatment. So far they haven’t commented.
