‘Show of force’ in B.R. leads to federal lawsuits, criticism
18th July 2016 · 0 Comments
More than 200 protesters arrested over weekend
Despite Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards’ description of the tactics used by the Baton Rouge Police Department to maintain law and order during a series of protests over the weekend of July 9-10 as “moderate,” the American Civil Liberties Union questioned the embattled department’s use of what it described as aggressive tactics.
About 200 people, including at least two trained legal observers, were arrested in weekend protests over the shooting death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling at the hands of two Baton Rouge police officers shortly after midnight on Tuesday, July 5.
The lion’s share of those arrested — about 150 — were taken into custody by police Saturday night, July 9. The following day the protest continued, resulting in the arrest of at least 50 additional protesters.
On Monday, July 11, as nonprofit legal organizations offered assistance to the arrested protesters, the ACLU of Louisiana criticized Baton Rouge and Louisiana law enforcement for responding to a peaceful Sunday protest with riot gear and armored vehicles.
Although it is not clear if it prompted what some called an extreme response from Baton Rouge authorities, several media outlets reported over the weekend that social media was set abuzz with a message that said all cops in Louisiana should be killed.
“The police came out prepared for a riot that wasn’t happening at the time,” Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, told WWL News Monday.
“It looked like the police were picking a fight,” she added.
Tracie Washington of the Louisiana Justice Institute, told WWL that her New Orleans-based group and others are working to free on bond protesters arrested on misdemeanor charges such as blocking a street.
WWL News reported that prior to a peaceful youth-organized march to the state capitol Sunday, volunteers with the National Lawyers Guild urged participants to write a legal hotline number on their forearms in case they were arrested. When the march ended, some continued down Government Street in an unsanctioned march that led to a standoff with police. At one point in the standoff, protesters chanted that number, 225-341-2287.
“There was one of the most peaceful demonstrations in Baton Rouge yesterday,” Washington told WWL. “For police to end it that way was just outrageous. This is unacceptable.”
Washington, a former WBOK radio talk-show host and no stranger to civil disobedience, attributed the law enforcement response Sunday to a lack of training and malice.
New Orleans police are trained in crowd control, Washington said.
“They do this two to three times a year, with drunk people, and they manage to get them under control without being ugly, without wearing riot gear,” she said. “Baton Rouge took a completely different approach, different and unnecessary. They would have looked better to the world had they allowed that day to go without violence.”
Shannon Ozene of Lafayette and her children, Dylan, 16, and Caitlin, 19, participated in the youth march and later watched the later protest from across Government Street.
“Yesterday was an eye-opener for them,” she said.
Dylan felt like the police didn’t have to respond the way they did, with the SWAT team and armored vehicles.
“I had to calm him down. I had to remind him all cops are not bad,” she said.
Ozene said she’s seen her share of police aggression.
“I had witnessed cops talk to Black people a certain way, handle people a certain kind of way,” she said. “I felt I was profiled. But I never witnessed cops coming out with shields and tanks. I still feel tense.”
Esman of the ACLU said Baton Rouge police had the choice not to arrest protesters on minor charges, just like a police officer can issue a warning instead of a ticket to a speeding motorist. Law enforcement officials also refused to negotiate with legal observers for an end to the standoff, she told WWL.
“At a time like this when the whole reason for the protest is mistrust between the community and police, what they did was to make it worse by showing the community that the police will not work with them, cannot be trusted.”
After police arrested three suspects who allegedly broke into a pawn shop to steal guns to use in an attack on cops, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie told reporters, “We have been questioned repeatedly over the last several days about our show of force and why we have the tactics we have. Well, this is the reason. We had credible threats to the lives of law enforcement in this city.”
Members of the Louisiana State Police, who were deployed during the recent protests, said participants threw pieces of concrete at them during the demonstration.
“This group was certainly not about a peaceful protest,” Louisiana State Police Col, Mike Edmonson told Nola.com after the July 10 protest.
The ACLU of Louisiana was joined by several other groups in filing a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Baton Rouge Police Department and other entities for violating the First Amendment rights of hundred of people protesting the police killing of Alton Sterling.
More than 200 people have been arrested in the past week since two cops tasered and shot Alto Sterling at point-blank range. The killing and the fatal shooting of Philando Castile led to national outrage and a series of protests around the U.S.
While the drama of these demonstrations were captured on national news shows, the Baton Rouge protests that took place two days after five police officers were killed by a lone gunman in Dallas, Texas, showed heavily armed cops in riot gear aggressively pushing protesters around and grabbing and arresting people who did not appear to be breaking any laws.
The federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, July 13, claims police used excessive force, physically and verbally abused protesters, and made wrongful arrests of people exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech, the press and assembly.
A temporary restraining order also was requested to prevent police “from interfering with people’s constitutionally protected right to gather peacefully moving forward,” the ACLU said in a news release.
WWL News reported that police in riot gear, wearing gas masks and carrying assault rifles, along with armored vehicles, were used to disperse a crowd on Sunday, July 10, participating in an unsanctioned protest in a Baton Rouge neighborhood where police diverted them as they marched toward Interstate 110.
The lawsuit alleges police blocked off streets and sidewalks, leaving the protesters with no place to go while being ordered to disperse. Police then manhandled demonstrators, tackling some on the ground, even arresting credentialed journalists and legal observers, the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the ACLU, North Baton Rouge Matters, Black Youth Project 100, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, and Louisiana chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which had legal observers on hand during Sunday’s protest. At least two of the legal observers were arrested.
Several other lawsuits against the BRPD were reportedly also filed by a New Orleans journalist who was roughed up by police and thrown into a jail cell even though he identified himself as a member of the press, a Black male protester who said he was physically beaten and kicked by cops and suffered a fractured eye, the owner of the Triple S convenience store where Alton Sterling was killed and a resident who objected to police coming onto her property to attack and arrest protesters.
Thousands gathered at the Felton G. Clark Activity Center on Southern University’s Baton Rouge campus for the funeral services of Alton Sterling, who is survived by five children and a host of friends and loved ones who vow to continue to demand justice in the wake of his death.
Among those expected to speak at the funeral were U.S. Congressman Cedric Richmond,D-La., and the Rev. Al Sharpton, a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and president of the National Action Network.
A GoFundMe page set up to raise funds for Sterling’s family has reportedly raised more than $700,000.
This article originally published in the July 18, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
