Gretna PD is being sued for alleged beating of Black man
27th December 2021 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
A civil lawsuit filed by a Jefferson Parish man against members of the City of Gretna Police Department alleging that GPD officers brutally assaulted him while he was in custody in a GPD cell has been placed on hold pending the outcome of the criminal charges that placed him in that jail cell.
Kevin Beauregard, with legal assistance from the ACLU of Louisiana’s Justice Lab Project, filed the lawsuit in April 2021 in response to the beating he says he endured on May 6, 2020, at the hands of about a half-dozen GPD officers. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court and is now before Judge Barry W. Ashe.
But the defense subsequently requested a stay to the civil proceedings until at least January, when Beauregard’s criminal case is taken up in Jefferson Parish District Court on Jan. 12. Beauregard, 33, is charged with being a convicted felon with a weapon, and battery of a police officer.
The incident in May 2020 began with a traffic stop after Beauregard left a motel on the Westbank Expressway in Gretna. The encounter escalated from that point, resulting in the charges against Beauregard and the alleged assault by police officers at the jail.
Beauregard’s criminal attorneys subsequently filed a motion to quash the evidence in that case, asserting that the original incident occurred in Orleans Parish and that, as a result, the GPD did not have jurisdiction. The motion was rejected by Judge Stephen C. Grefer in August of this year. The criminal case is being prosecuted by Jefferson Parish Assistant District Attorney Meredith Hearn.
The lawyers for the GPD defendants in Beauregard’s civil lawsuit requested a stay, or a legal postponement, in the civil case pending the results of Beauregard’s criminal case this month, and Beauregard’s suit alleges that his experience is representative of systemic racism within the GPD, which the lawsuit says unfairly targets people of color, sometimes ending in assaults or other violations of citizens’ constitutional rights, especially Gretna youth.
“The targeting of minority Black youth by police perpetuates cycles of criminalization and poverty in Black communities,” the lawsuit states. “Young Black people who have negative interactions with law enforcement have lower educational achievement and a higher likelihood of being incarcerated in the future.
“The abuse that Mr. Beauregard endured at the hands of GPD was a continuation of this pattern of discriminatory treatment that he and many people of color are forced to confront from a young age.”
The suit added that “Mr. Beauregard seeks to hold [the GPD officers] accountable for violating his constitutional and statutory rights on May 5, 2020. It is evident that, unless and until Defendants are held accountable for their racially motivated misconduct and violence, they will continue to violate the rights of Black people – regardless of whether those individuals are cooperative, subdued, or otherwise pose no threat.”
However, the defendants’ subsequent court filings deny the allegations against them and assert that Beauregard has no case and that any injuries he sustained on that night in May 2020 were the result of his own actions, giving the officers legal absolution. The defendants’ filings claim that the original arrest was lawful and that Beauregard was uncooperative with the officers.
The GPD officers named as defendants in Beauregard’s lawsuit – Christopher Breaux, Kayla English, Timothy Kennedy and Roland Kindell – as well as other unnamed officers are being defended by New Orleans attorney Leonard L. Levenson, who said in a statement to The Louisiana Weekly that the defendants’ initial response to Beauregard’s lawsuit, filed in July 2021, represented the defendants’ willingness to get to the truth in the case.
“It was at that time that the defendants were willing to engage in the commencement of formal discovery to ferret out the true facts of Mr. Beauregard’s complaint against inaccuracies and embellishments,” Levenson said.
He added that Beauregard’s refusal to waive his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during the discovery phase of the civil case has held up the advancement of both the civil and criminal cases, making a stay on the civil case necessary until the criminal charges against Beauregard are sorted out.
“Ordinarily, these civil cases are ‘stayed’ by agreement pending the criminal prosecutions,” Levenson said. “However, in this case, the defendants were forced to seek a formal stay of the proceedings from the Court to prevent an unfair advantage against the Defendants. Mr. Beauregard opposed.
Mr. Beauregard wished to proceed with his civil action while not fully participating in discovery, to the prejudice of the defendants by reserving his right to assert this privilege at will.
“Because of the general policy of not commenting upon pending litigation, further comments will not be made, beyond stating that the defendants intend to vigorously defend against the accusations and expect full vindication,” he added.
In granting the stay, Ashe noted that Hurricane Ida disrupted the criminal proceedings against Beauregard, whose case had been scheduled for a jury trial in September 2021.
“In light of this,” Ashe wrote in his decision, which was issued on Oct. 14, “it does not appear that any delay of Beauregard’s civil action resulting from a stay will last long enough to give rise to any prejudice. … On the other hand, Beauregard seeks to proceed with his civil action while not fully participating in discovery, which would undoubtedly prejudice the GPD Defendants.”
Ashe concluded that “the interests of both the court and the public in the fairness of this proceeding are advanced by a stay of limited duration.”
A key facet of the police officers’ defense is claiming that the cops have both absolute and qualified immunity from legal action because of their status as police and civil employees. The issue of qualified immunity – which critics say shields police from any legal consequences of their often violent wrongdoing and constitutional violations – has become a topic of debate, both in Louisiana and nationally, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter Movement and heightening calls for comprehensive police reform.
This article originally published in the December 27, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
