“[The three white women] should be sitting at the defendant’s table for stalking and harassment charges, not Mr. Peeples,” Bryant said during the hearing. “This is disgusting and a waste of the court’s time and resources,” she added before granting the defense’s motion for a directed verdict, which ended the case before it went in front of a jury.
On Thursday, Bryant told Metro Times she found that the women filed false police reports, initiated all contact with Peeples, and “engaged in a very targeted and constant harassment of the young man” that appeared to be racially motivated. “I found their testimony to be offensive,” Bryant added.
Though Detroit police dept filed the stalking charges, body camera footage from one police officer reveals him labeling one of the more serious allegations “B.S.”
One of them even alleged that he had taken part in a drive-by shooting.
The three women made dozens of phone calls to police about Peeples during the course of 2017 and this year.
The women, who have been identified as Deborah Nash, Jennifer Morris, and Martha Callahan, apparently objected to Peeples’ garden that he planted in a vacant playground.‘[The three white women] should be sitting at the defendant’s table for stalking and harassment charges, not Mr. Peeples,’ District Court Judge E. Lynise Bryant [photo, right], said.
Nash alleged that Peeples threatened to take her home. Then she claimed that he painted ‘gang colors’ on vacant homes and trees.
She also alleged that Peeples threatened to kill her and to burn down her house.
All of these allegations were false, according to authorities.
The women were so unhappy with the garden that they ‘engaged in a very targeted and constant harassment of the young man,’ according to Bryant.
‘I found their testimony to be offensive,’ the judge said.
Eventually, Detroit police charged Peeples with stalking even though one of the officers is heard on his body cam saying that the more serious allegations against him were ‘B.S.’
Peeples said: ‘It was blatant racism.
‘They didn’t like the fact that a black man was in so-called “their” neighborhood without their permission.’
In March, Detroit police sent three squad cars after Nash alleged that Peeples threatened her with a gun.
But when officers arrived, they saw Peeples raking leaves in a nearby lot.
‘Ain’t no law against raking leaves,’ the officer is heard saying in body cam footage.

Peeples prevailed in court, but at a steep cost.
He paid $4,500 to be freed on bond. He also had to pay substantial legal fees to his attorneys.
Worst of all, he was fired from jobs and had difficulty finding employment to make ends meet.
A friend started a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign to help Peeples recoup some of his losses.
‘It’s frustrating to have accusations placed on you with no merit, and they get you all the way into court to go to trial,’ Peeples said.
‘If someone believed their story and I was found guilty, I would be in county jail doing up to a year just because they don’t want … a black person in their area.

‘They get to ruin my life, say anything they want, and then they get to go on with their lives,’ Peeples said.
“These women are racist, plain and simple. They don’t want me here. They wanted to do this garden without me,” he said.
“I am boarding up houses, cutting grass, planting a garden, trying to keep riffraff out of here and they are a filing false reports against me. They did a lot of damage to me.”
The case is reminiscent of other instances in which panicked whites called police on Black people who were doing routine activities outdoors.
Peeples does not want social media to give these three women any nicknames.
‘People are giving these ladies funny nicknames but this is serious,’ he said.
‘This is my life, what these people are doing is not cute – it’s ugly.’