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Nevada cops sued over forced occupation of private homes

RT | July 5, 2013

It’s been a few hundred years since the Third Amendment was written to keep King George from quartering British troops in American homes, but a lawsuit just filed in Nevada suggests it’s as relevant as ever.

The framers of the Constitution ratified the Third Amendment to ensure citizens would never again have to accommodate soldiers, but a few centuries later it’s become more-or-less an antiquated law that’s rarely referenced in federal court. That changed recently when a family from Henderson, Nevada accused the local police department of constitutional violations after officers of the law allegedly took residence in two neighborhood homes.

According to a legal filing first obtained by Courthouse News Service, a handful of Henderson Police Department officers and the city itself are being sued for an array of charges — including Third Amendment violations — over an incident that mirrors the making of the American Revolution.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs say police officers demanded they be allowed to occupy two homes owned by their clients on the city’s Eveningside Avenue in 2011 in order to conduct an investigation involving a neighbor’s residence. When the owners refused to comply with the request, they were reportedly arrested for obstruction and brought to jail.

Police were investigating an incident at 363 Eveningside Avenue that July when Officer Christopher Worley called up the occupant of a neighboring property, Anthony Mitchell, and said he’d need to use his house in order to gain a ‘tactical advantage’ over the neighbor’s residence. Mitchell reportedly made it clear that he did not want to get involved in the probe and told Worley he would not be able to offer assistance. According to the lawsuit, Officer David Cawthorn, Sgt. Michael Waller and Worley all then “conspired among themselves to force Anthony Mitchell out of his residence and to occupy his home for their own use.”

“It was determined to move to 367 Eveningside and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested,” the report determined.

Moments later, the officers “arrayed themselves in front of plaintiff Anthony Mitchell’s house and prepared to execute their plan,” after which they “loudly commanded” they be let inside. Seconds later, Mitchell’s door was knocked down with a metal battering ram and the police entered his home.

“As plaintiff Anthony Mitchell stood in shock, the officers aimed their weapons at Anthony Mitchell and shouted obscenities at him and ordered him to lie down on the floor,” the suit alleges.

As the police moved into the home, Mitchell was reportedly called an “asshole” by the cops, ordered to crawl on the floor and then shot several times with non-lethal ‘pepperball rounds’ from close range. He was then arrested for obstructing an officer while the cops combed through his house without permission, but not before they also opened fire at the plaintiff’s dog, prompting it to howl “in fear and pain.”

At the same time, officers approached Anthony’s parents down the block at 362 Eveningside and asked father Michael Mitchell if he’d accompany them back to a local ‘command center’ to assist with negotiating the surrender of the neighbor suspected of domestic violence. When he got there, though, he became concerned that the cops had tricked him into leaving so they could try to gain access to yet another home. Michael Mitchell then tried to head back home, but when he left the command center he was arrested, handcuffed and placed in the back of a cop car.

Attorney for the family say there was no reasonable grounds to detain Michael Mitchell, nor probable cause to suspect him of committing any crime. That didn’t keep officers from holding both him and his son Anthony for nine hours, however, before they were ultimately released after posting bond.

All criminal counts against the Mitchells were later dismissed with prejudice, but the family has now lobbed charges of their own. Their attorney is asking for a trial by jury to hear the case and ideally award his clients punitive damages for violations of the Third, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, assault and battery, conspiracy, defamation, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, negligence and emotional distress.

July 6, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Cops May Be Liable for Felling Occupy Berkeley

By CHRIS MARSHALL | Courthouse News Service | March 1, 2013

OAKLAND, California – Police must face excessive-force claims related to an Occupy protest they dispersed at the University of California, Berkeley, a federal judge ruled.

The protesters claimed to have been engaged in a peaceful protest of tuition hikes and the privatization of public education when officers battered them and used excessive force.

After police raided their Sproul Hall encampment on Nov. 9, 2011, hundreds of protestors allegedly returned later that evening and erected more tents.
They said Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Harry LeGrande warned them to remove their tents before the police arrived 10 p.m., at which time they would allegedly give a 10-minute warning and remove the tents by force. Officers actually arrived in riot gear at 9:30 and raided the encampment, according to the complaint.

The protestors allegedly linked arms to face the police, who again used their batons, “but this time with even more brutality, pushing and jabbing people and using overhand strokes on protestors’ heads,” according to the complaint.

“The officers grabbed and indiscriminately pulled some of the protestors out of the lines and placed them under arrest,” they added. Even after removing the tents, some officers allegedly continued to beat the protestors, who were reinforced with hundreds more concerned students, according to the complaint. At least 2,000 people allegedly amassed before the officers “ceased their attack on the protestors.”

A group of 29 then sued school police, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and the Oakland Police Department for excessive force, false arrest, retaliatory prosecution and abuse of process. They said university officials had set in motion or ignored the police action that caused their injuries.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers last week found the allegations sufficient against some officers who were directly involved in alleged beating of protestors, but she dismissed claims against supervisors and others not directly involved.

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Department failed to show that the claims against its officers were “unwarranted deductions of fact or unreasonable inferences,” according to the ruling.

She cited multiple specific allegations from the lawsuit, including a claim that Officer Obichere, “who appeared to weigh over 250 pounds, focused on [Plaintiff Christopher] Anderson and hit him with tremendous force about five times with increasing intensity. In addition to jabs, this officer used overhand swings and struck Mr. Anderson’s legs as well.”

Alleging that a police officer used excessive force is a legal conclusion, but “alleging that a police officer used overhand swings to strike the plaintiff is not,” Rogers wrote.

The protestors pleaded “factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant[s are] liable for the misconduct alleged,” she added.

Rogers upheld excessive-force allegations against Officers Chavez, Garcia, King and Obichere. Neither the complaint nor the ruling provides the first names of these individual police officers.

University of California Police Department Officer Samantha Lachler is similarly not entitled to immunity for claims that she purposely hit protestor Hayden Harrison in the groin with the edge of her baton.

“Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, police officers, who were attempting to enforce a no-camping ordinance at 3:30 pm, made a dispersal announcement that protestors could not hear, and then the police officers began hitting protestors that were trapped in a crowd,” the ruling states. “The facts and circumstances confronting the officers, when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, do not support an inference that Mr. Harrison posed a threat to the safety of officers or others, was disobeying police orders or camping. Rather, the well-plead facts support an inference that Officer Lachler hit a passive individual in the groin because, by linking arms with other protestors, he may have inhibited her progress.”

While Lachler challenges the truth of the allegations, she “does not assert that hitting a passive protestor is constitutional or that the law regarding the use of force against passive individuals was sufficiently unclear at the time of the events at issue that Officer Lachler made a reasonable mistake as to what the law requires,” Rogers wrote.

The court did toss excessive force claims against UC Police Detective Rick Florendo and UC Police Officer N. Hernandez, noting a lack of specific allegations against them.

Concession from the plaintiffs also led Rogers to dismiss all claims against Alameda County Sheriff Chief Gregory Ahern.

Allegations against university officials, however, were too generalized and unspecific, the court found, tossing all of them with leave to amend.

Lead plaintiff Yvette Felarca and the other plaintiffs are represented by Ronald Cruz of Scheff, Washington & Driver. J. Randall Andrada represents the defendants. 

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March 2, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , | Leave a comment