Kimberly Latta regularly attends Saturday morning studies of the Torah — the first five books of the Hebrew Bible — with fellow members of Congregation Dor Hadash. These classes fueled a passion for social justice and civil rights.
Until Oct. 27, 2018, that class took place at the Tree of Life synagogue building in Squirrel Hill that housed Dor Hadash and two other congregations.
On that fateful morning, she arrived late — and found the perimeter of the synagogue already sealed as an anti-Semitic assault unfolded there.
“It was really, really awful, not knowing what happened,” Ms. Latta recalled.
She would soon learn that one of her fellow class members, Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, was among the 11 slain in the building that day, and another, Dan Leger, was seriously injured.
On June 1 of this year, Ms. Latta was determined to apply the values she learned in that class — and ended up experiencing a second traumatic event in less than two years.
That evening, she joined a rally in East Liberty protesting racial injustices, including the death of George Floyd beneath the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. She said she was protesting peacefully, seated on a sidewalk, when she was overcome by tear gas as police dispersed the crowd around her. She said officers shoved her into the street, bound her hands, prepared to arrest her and ultimately told her to go home and expect a summons.
“The Torah teaches us to pursue justice, so that was what I was doing,” she said in an interview.
She said what she experienced that one night is nothing compared to what what African Americans routinely experience.
“It’s not about me. It’s about African Americans; it’s about equality and justice,” she said.
Pittsburgh police issued a summons citing Ms. Latta for failure to disperse, according to Chris Togneri, public information officer for the city’s Public Safety Department.
“Regarding her account, police cannot comment on ongoing investigations,” he said. “But there is video of the arrest which is part of the evidence that illustrates why she was charged, and that she was exposed to smoke, not gas.”
Ms. Latta said she has no doubt it was tear gas that left her crying uncontrollably and struggling for breath.
Public safety officials and Mayor Bill Peduto have previously said that during the June 1 protest in East Liberty, which had proceeded peacefully for hours, a splinter group clashed in the evening with officers at Centre and Negley avenues, resulting in nine officers being injured and about 20 protesters arrested.
Less than two days later, after learning more about crowd dispersion, reading social-media comments and seeing first-hand video and photographs taken during the protest, Mr. Peduto said that he wanted a “full, third-party review” to be investigated by the city’s Office of Municipal Investigations and the Citizen Police Review Board.
Police have said they used smoke canisters in that encounter but acknowledged using tear gas and firing beanbags and sponge rounds in other East Liberty locations to disperse the larger crowd.
Ms. Latta had been at home early that evening, watching live as federal law-enforcement authorities cracked down on protesters around Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. Authorities were using tear gas and forcing protesters back to enable President Donald Trump to walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church, which had incurred minor fire damage during the previous day’s protests and where he had his photo taken holding a Bible.
“I was so infuriated by President Trump’s malicious use of armed military against our citizens with tear gas,” said Ms. Latta, 59, of Highland Park. “I was just so appalled by that I couldn’t sit still. I just had to go and add my voice and presence.”
Ms. Latta got on her bicycle and headed to the East Liberty protest. She said she was confronted by police in riot gear near the intersection of Centre Avenue and Highland Avenue and that a female officer shoved her back with a plastic riot shield.
“I think the police were really agitated,” she said, and was told of the clash with some in the crowd that had just occurred. She said she replied, “I’m very sorry to hear there was any any violence. This needs to be nonviolent.”
She said she retreated back to the intersection and joined other protesters, eventually sitting on a sidewalk, her palms held together. She said she doesn’t remember hearing any order to disperse.
Then she saw an approaching “black wave” of uniformed police.
“It was so terrifying,” she said. “One of the protesters grabbed my arms before the police got me and tried to pull me away. I wasn’t going. I wanted to make a statement. I’m sitting here in a nonviolent, nonresistant way. [Officers] grabbed me by the arms and they threw me into the street.”
Ms. Latta said she was overwhelmed by tear gas, leaving her coughing uncontrollably, she said. She lost control of her bowels, she said, adding, “It illustrates the state of trauma I was in.”
She said police bound her hands behind her back.
“I said, ‘I can’t breathe,’ which felt kind of ironic” since those were Floyd’s dying words, she said. “But I couldn’t, so they turned me onto my side. Then they roughly hauled me up to my feet.”
But she was still “coughing so severely I doubled over like a rag doll,” she recalled. “And then when I finally could get a breath and stand up and raise my head, I saw that I was surrounded by a group of policemen like they were defending a fort all around the intersection, not letting people in or out.”
Eventually, Ms. Latta recovered her breath, and she said an officer in charge told her of how officers were injured at Negley.
“I said I am strongly opposed to violence, and I’m sorry to hear that,” Ms. Latta recalled. “Violence doesn’t help our cause.”
The arresting officer began filling out the paperwork.
“After three to five minutes, I’m still in tears. I’m sure I was bright red and smelled,” Ms. Latta said, and finally was released after being asked to swear she would go straight home.
“Yeah, where else would I go?” she said, and was told to expect a summons.
She had not yet received it as of Thursday. She has not decided whether to file a complaint about police conduct.
“I wept all the way home, I wept in the shower, I cried myself to sleep,” she said. “I was crying all the next day. I was so scared. I was so scared.”
It helps, she said, to tell her story, and to do artistic work: She is creating a large mosaic on her garage.
Ms. Latta, who formerly taught English at the University of Pittsburgh, more recently has worked in counseling as a social worker and also does independent scholarship. It was while doing personal genealogical research that she found another personal connection to racial injustice.
“My ancestors were slave owners” in Southern states, she said. “It’s just appalling. I feel like I have a personal obligation to do this work.
She added: “My black sisters and brothers have been standing up to this kind of oppression for hundreds of years, and it’s about time we white people stood up beside them. If that means if we protest nonviolently and the police attack us violently, then they’re showing the system to everybody. That’s why we do it. It has to change.”
Peter Smith: petersmith@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416; Twitter @PG_PeterSmith.
First Published: June 15, 2020, 10:42 a.m.
