Prominent West Philly activist pleads guilty to flipping police car during 2020 racial justice protests

A prominent West Philadelphia activist, who was the lead plaintiff in a civil rights lawsuit over the police response to the racial justice protests that roiled the city in May 2020, pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges tied to his actions during those demonstrations.

Anthony “Ant” Smith — a charter school teacher and organizer with the Philadelphia Coalition for Racial, Economic and Legal Justice (Philly for REAL Justice) — told a federal judge he and others flipped a police car parked outside City Hall as thousands gathered in Center City to protest the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

His guilty plea — to one felony count of obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder — comes two months after the city agreed to pay him and about 350 other demonstrators and city residents a combined $9.25 million to settle a civil suit over what they described as an overzealous police response.

» READ MORE: Philadelphia will pay $9.25M to protesters over police use of tear gas and rubber bullets during 2020 unrest

Smith, 31, said little in front of a courtroom packed with dozens of supporters as U.S. District Judge Juan R. Sánchez walked him through a series of questions to ensure he understood the consequences of his guilty plea. Under state law, the felony charge will likely bar Smith from teaching for 10 years, his lawyer said.

Smith declined to comment after Tuesday’s proceedings, as family and community members greeted him with hugs.

“Anthony’s bad judgment during that extraordinary moment in our history is not a reflection of who he is as a person, and his longstanding effort to be a positive force in the community,” said his lawyer, Paul J. Hetznecker. “It is my hope that the judge will see what a remarkable young man [Smith] is by the time we get to sentencing.”

Smith was one of six people charged by federal prosecutors in the months following those demonstrations with setting police cars ablaze.

But his case emerged as a flashpoint in the debate around those demonstrations because of his profile, the nature of the charges against him, and the timing of his arrest.

In a splashy news conference, then-U. S. Attorney William M. McSwain unveiled the indictment against Smith — a social studies teacher at the North Philadelphia charter school YouthBuild Philadelphia — and two codefendants just weeks after Smith had become the lead plaintiff in the civil suit and days after his activism had drawn praise from Philadelphia Magazine, which named him one of the city’s most influential residents.

As in the other cases, prosecutors filed federal arson charges — which carry a seven-year mandatory minimum sentence. But Smith’s initial charging documents were scant on details of what exactly he and others were accused of doing.

At the time, McSwain, an appointee of then-President Donald Trump, declined to answer questions about those specifics, instead using the indictment to make broader statements about Philadelphia as a city that he saw as standing on the precipice between “respect for democracy” and “destruction.”

He would later launch an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination for governor, building his campaign around many of the same talking points and citing his record of charging demonstrators such as Smith.

Though McSwain stressed that he drew distinctions between the thousands who protested Floyd’s death peacefully and those involved in property destruction, Hetznecker and members of the Philadelphia activist community accused the government of using the stiff sentence that comes with the arson charge to intimidate and to quell constitutionally protected rights to protest.

Since then, the government’s position on those cases has softened. Under new U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero, an appointee of President Joe Biden, prosecutors have extended plea deals to all six who were facing arson charges.

As in Smith’s case, those agreements allowed them to plead guilty to lesser charges of civil disorder — slashing the potential prison time from a seven-year mandatory minimum to a five-year maximum sentence.

Even in that context, Smith’s case stands apart. Each of the other defendants admitted, as part of the plea deal, to igniting police cars with lit road flares or Molotov cocktails.

But the portions of Smith’s plea agreement that outline the exact conduct to which he admitted Tuesday make no mention of his directly setting any fire — despite the arson charge he initially faced.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda R. Reinitz told the judge the government had video evidence of Smith and others rocking a white police sedan back and forth amid the protests. She said another person, whom she did not identify by name, placed a lit flare inside the car, igniting the fire that consumed it.

That distinction could have a significant effect on the punishment Smith faces at a sentencing hearing in September. The five other defendants who were initially charged with arson received sentences ranging from one to five years.

Sánchez imposed many of those sentences, but he offered no indication Tuesday of what sort of punishment he might hand down to Smith.

“We have a right to peacefully assemble and protest,” the judge. “But the right to … destroy property, we don’t have that right.”

The judge, however, did lift an order that had kept Smith on home detention since his 2021 arrest, noting that he’d complied with all its conditions.

“I feel good about today’s outcome,” Smith’s father, Romeo Smith said in a statement following the hearing. “Anthony was composed and professional during the hearing, as he always is. I’m proud of him and what he stands for.”

In the civil suit settled earlier this year, Smith and his fellow plaintiffs accused officers of using heavy-handed tactics to disperse crowds — including indiscriminate use of tear gas and rubber bullets — that trampled on their rights to free expression and freedom from excessive force.

Smith told The Inquirer at the time he was arrested by Philadelphia police that officers drove him around in a police van for hours before releasing him at 3 a.m. from a precinct in North Philadelphia with a $20 curfew violation.

On Monday, Hetznecker stressed the difference between Smith’s criminal case and the lawsuit settlement. He noted that Smith took responsibility in court for property damage on May 30, 2020, while the settlement with the city pertained to “a physical assault by police using tear gas and other munitions on human beings” the following day.

» READ MORE: Besieged, then betrayed: As protests intensified, police blanketed W. Philadelphia's 52nd Street in tear gas

The $9.25 million settlement, which also included agreements to fund counseling for victims of police violence and committed police officials to periodic meetings with West Philadelphia residents, is the largest settlement in a mass protest-related case in the city’s history.