Sacramento police sued over rubber bullets, other force during George Floyd protests
Sacramento police were hit with a new lawsuit Thursday over officers’ use of rubber bullets during recent protests of police brutality cases, a move that seeks class-action status for countless protesters who took to the streets over the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis and were met with what the suit calls “unreasonable and excessive use of force.”
The suit, filed in federal court by Sacramento civil rights attorney Mark Merin, names four plaintiffs who say they were injured by projectiles fired by police – including a National Lawyers Guild legal observer monitoring the events – and says the use of force was needlessly deployed against citizens exercising their right to free speech.
“Many protests have occurred, and are continuing to occur, in Sacramento, California,” the lawsuit says. “Demonstrating the very same propensity for the use of unjustified violence that gave rise to these recent nationwide demonstrations, defendant Sacramento Police Department’s offices took to the street in droves, armed for war against their own citizenry, and employed severe and unjustified excessive force against peaceful, non-violent demonstrators.”
The suit lists four incidents in downtown and midtown where police deployed rubber bullets and tear gas against the demonstrators, including one late on the evening of May 30 at 21st and J streets, an area that had been hit hard by looting that night.
Demonstrators say the looting was committed by individuals taking advantage of the chaos caused by the protests, which spread throughout the area that night. For days as the protests grew, demonstrators and law enforcement officers engaged in standoffs that at times were broken up by officers using batons, tear gas or rubber bullets.
Some protesters at various marches also hurled items at police, including river rocks, planters, water bottles and eggs.
The lawsuit, which alleges unreasonable and excessive force, constitutional violations and other causes, says one of the plaintiffs, Thongxy Phansopha, was peacefully demonstrating in front of a police line with others when officers “began indiscriminately to fire their weapons into the crowd of protesters.”
Phansopha was hit with six rubber bullets – three to the face and head – and a tear gas canister, causing severe injuries, the suit says.
Phansopha “required two emergency, life-saving brain surgeries because of the injuries they sustained,” the suit says.
A city spokesman declined to comment Thursday, saying officials had not yet been served with the complaint. The Police Department has refused previously to divulge whether its officers were involved in incidents that injured protesters or to say how many officers are being investigated for use of force during the protests.
“We are still in the process of reviewing bodycam footage and documenting incidents that have occurred during the protests,” Sgt. Sabrina Briggs said in a June 10 email to The Sacramento Bee. “At this point we do not have an exact number to provide.”
Briggs said information on how many officers are being investigated would only be disclosed after The Bee filed a public records act request, which is pending.
The only incident the department has confirmed it is investigating is the June 1 arrest of a teenager by an officer who was seen on video placing the suspect in a neck restraint.
The lawsuit seeks class action status for protesters who swept into the streets and were met with tear gas, rubber bullets, flash bang grenades and pepper balls. The suit notes that the department’s use-of-force policies allow for deployment of such “less lethal” weapons, but says they are inherently dangerous.
“In reality, projectile weapons have the ability to severely injure, permanently disable, and kill targets,” the suit says.
Merin has filed numerous lawsuits against various law enforcement agencies over use-of-force incidents, including one settled in March by the city for about $500,000 that stemmed from the 2019 arrest of 84 demonstrators in East Sacramento who were protesting the shooting death of Stephon Clark a year earlier by police.
The suit filed Thursday seeks a preliminary injunction that his office says seeks “to end the use of the projectiles which cause both death and permanent disability and were recently outlawed against demonstrators in Seattle and Portland.”
It also describes injuries to other plaintiffs, including lawyers guild observer Daniel Garza, who followed marchers on May 30 from near the Main Jail at Seventh and I streets to 21st and J streets.
Garza, wearing a neon green NLG hat that guild observers routinely wear to make themselves identifiable to both law enforcement and protesters, saw officers preparing to fire projectiles and told one, “We are not part of them, we are not interfering,” the lawsuit says.
Despite that, an officer later fired a projectile that hit him in the left side of his forehead, causing him to fall to the ground crying out in pain, the suit says. His speech became impaired as he and others retreated from the scene with a nursing student and a doctor who were trying to help him, but all three were then hit with pepper balls fired by officers, the suit says.
Garza still suffers from pain, short-term memory and ability to focus, the suit says.
Another plaintiff, Elisabeth Crouchley, says she was near 20th and J streets early on May 31 when officers began firing at peaceful demonstrators and she began to run. The suit says that as she ran she was hit with a bean-bag projectile on the back of her neck and threw her hands up shouting, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”
She was then hit with four rubber bullets in the back of her head, her back, hip and foot, the suit says.
A fourth plaintiff, Joshua Ruiz, was downtown near the Capitol when police suddenly opened fire and he “was struck several times with projectiles, all over his body,” the suit says.
Ruiz fell down and police continued to fire and strike him with projectiles “even as he lay on the ground, defenseless and injured,” the suit says.
The lawsuit also contends that protesters cannot name officers who fired at them because equipment on their uniforms obscured any name plates, something that was a regular complaint by protesters at the marches who said riot gear covered up any ability to identify badge numbers or names.
This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 2:11 PM.