“The Berkeley Police responded brutally, clubbing peaceable protesters and journalists, typically from behind, some within the head, indiscriminately and unnecessarily; and utilizing profligate quantities of teargas with out justification”, the grievance stated.
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The protests were some of the largest in Berkeley in decades.
The tweet, which Officer John Hurlman posted earlier this week but later deleted, said, “Black Lives Matter is planning to protest at Lloyd Center on black Friday”.
Berkeley police incurred wide criticism for using tear gas, projectiles and baton strikes to disperse the December 6 protest against police killings of unarmed black men in Missouri, NY and elsewhere in the nation.
“We were hopeful that [the investigation] would go somewhere, because it’s been such an extended process … but it is looking like it will be a repeat of the City Council passing a piecemeal solution rather than what is needed, which is a comprehensive revamping of Berkeley Police Department’s policing and crowd control police”, Lederman said of the upcoming council meeting. “This was a protest that was done all over the country and a protest that was done all over the Bay Area and a protest that was done in specifically Oakland and San Francisco, and none of those cities had the problems that Berkeley did because none of [those police departments] looked at it the way that Berkeley did”, Chanin said.
Police said they are conducting an internal investigation.
Among the plaintiffs, photographer Sam Wolson, 25, who was covering the event for the San Francisco Chronicle, and “multimedia journalist” Reginald James, 32, say they were clubbed while covering the event as journalists, and other plaintiffs say they were clubbed and gassed for exercising their civil rights, and several were arrested without cause and needed medical attention.
The demonstrators were then allowed to move north on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. But Chanin pointed out that the department has yet to institute a body camera policy, so much of the police action was unrecorded by the department. The plaintiffs and their attorneys shared this view at the press conference.
Alvarado said her brother had told her on the night of the crime that his friend had shot the officer, according to the Times. “Stretch the crowd out so they are not a mass, but individuals”. The release doesn’t name the officer nor does it detail the tweet, but news reports posted screenshots.
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Spokespeople for the Berkeley Police Department did not return requests for comment. Johnson et al. seek statutory and punitive damages for civil rights violations, including violations of the First, Fourth and 14th Amendments, false arrest and imprisonment and negligence.
