Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson is suing Baton Rouge over his arrest during a Black Lives Matter protest following the death of Alton Sterling last month.
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The shooting of Alton Sterling was one of a string of police killings of black people by white police officers in recent years that triggered mass protests and rekindled debates about race relations in the US.
Mckesson is joined in his suit by two other activists who were also arrested, but he hopes to turn it into a class-action suit representing everyone who was arrested during the protests.
A few days after the arrests, Baton Rouge police said it would not charge around half of the detained protesters. Charges for “simple obstruction of highway commerce” against McKesson and other protesters were later dropped.
Plaintiffs are claiming they are entitled to compensation for lost pay, bond expenses, administrative fees paid to the city and jail, court costs, as well as past and future attorney fees to clear their records of the arrests.
McKesson, known for his activism on social media and who ran in the 2016 Democratic Party primary for mayor of his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, said in the lawsuit that demonstrators sought to have all arrest records expunged as well as unspecified damages.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, along with other rights groups, filed a similar lawsuit to Mckesson’s last month, The Guardian reported.
The suit specifically identifies the city of Baton Rouge, the East Baton Rouge Parish, the superintendent of the Louisiana State Police and the city’s local chief of police and sheriff as the defendants of the case. Edmonson, who said he believes police “exercised great restraint”, said: “I didn’t witness any aggressive form of behaviour by any police officer”. Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. cited those “credible threats” as the reason for police officers’ tactics and their “show of force” during the protests.
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On July 17, Gavin Long, shot and killed three police officers in Baton Rouge. Long, a black military veteran from Kansas City, Missouri, had posted rambling internet videos calling for violence in response to what he considered oppression. Please see our terms of service for more information.
