TAMPA, Fla. - State Attorney Andrew Warren said Monday his office will not file charges against 67 protesters who were arrested during Tampa protests.

Warren said that in each case, "the evidence shows the person arrested was peacefully protesting."

The people arrested June 2 were accused of unlawful assembly.

The protests were part of a series of protests both locally and nationally in the wake of George Floyd's death on Memorial Day. Four police officers in Minnesapolis have been charged in his death.

"Prosecuting people for exercising their First Amendment rights doesn’t solve problems, it creates them," Warren said Monday.

Prosecutors in Pinellas and Pasco Counties were evaluating individual arrests related to the recent protests. So far there have been about 40 misdemeanor arrests, plus nine felony cases, said Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett.

The felonies are likely to still be prosecuted, Bartlett said.

They include the case of a man who is accused of hurling an object at St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway.

Information from news gathering partner the Tampa Bay Times was used in this story.