If it’s not the Oakland Police, it’s Berkeley’s. They just can’t help themselves. Actually, they don’t care a whit. Make that give a shit. They are not the ones who will have to pay the settlements or face any consequences for their illegal and unconstitutional actions, so why should they?
As the local Berkeleyside newspaper reports
Attorneys representing 14 people struck and jabbed by police batons, clubbed, beaten, teargassed, slammed to the ground, fired on with “less lethal” projectiles or arrested during December protests in Berkeley related to the “Black Lives Matter” movement are considering filing a civil claim with the city on their clients’ behalf.
In late June, attorneys filed four tort claims outlining alleged injuries to their clients. Those documents are required to be submitted prior to the official filing of a lawsuit against a government entity…
Attorneys for the litigants are Rachel Lederman, who represented Occupy Oakland participants in successful suits against Oakland and the behavior of their police, and Jim Chanin, the attorney in the decade-ago Riders’ case which ultimately resulted in Oakland’s police being forced into Federal monitoring – a state they are still in today. Lederman and Chanin both also represented Scott Olsen in his case which settled for $4.5M in the Spring of ’14.
The plaintiffs include
- Minister Cindy Pincus who tried to help a woman who had fallen down after being jabbed by a police officer’s club when an officer from an unknown department struck her in the head.
- San Francisco Chronicle photographer Sam Wolson who was taking pictures when an officer “pushed him, and then struck him on the back of the head and neck with a police ‘baton’ from behind.”
- Joseph Cuff who was walking with his dog when an officer shoved him with his baton, “slamming him to the ground.”
- Berkeley resident Moni Law who was “clubbed from behind.” by an officer.
- Local journalist Rasheed Shabazz who “was visibly engaged in photojournalism,” when an officer struck his camera and chest multiple times, then clubbed him in the knee from behind.
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