ACLU sues St. Louis over police crackdown on protesters
US rights activists have sued the city of St. Louis, Missouri, over police’s violent treatment of protestors during a series of rallies sparked by the acquittal of a white officer accused of killing an African American man.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)’s Missouri branch filed the civil rights lawsuit in US district court in St. Louis on Friday.
The statement named Maleeha Ahmad, Alison Dreith and "a class of similarly situated individuals" as plaintiffs who were maltreated by officers.
"Everyone deserves the same rights as I do. I just want peace and justice," Ahmad, who was pepper sprayed by police without warning, said in a statement.
The lawsuit asked the court for an order requiring St. Louis to respect the right to freedom of speech and refrain from arbitrarily declaring assemblies unlawful.
"Unfortunately, we are seeing a lack of respect on First Amendment rights," said Jeffrey Mittman, ACLU of Missouri’s executive director, referring to the constitutional guarantee that protects American people’s freedom of speech.
Protests began on Friday morning when Judge Timothy Wilson cleared former police officer Jason Stockley, 36, who was charged with first-degree murder for killing 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011.
The officer quit the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department in 2013 and was arrested in May 2016. Stockley was accused of planting a gun in Smith's car but claimed in his testimony that he did this in self-defense.
"A common theme of the protests has been that, in the view of the protesters, the verdict reflected institutional racism and unwarranted bias in favor of law enforcement officers," the lawsuit said.
The protesters committed no crime and posed no threat to the safety of police or others, the lawsuit said.
This is while police frequently fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters who were taking part in the three-day unrest.
ACLU accused the city of retaliating against people engaged in activities which are protected by their First Amendment rights, according to the lawsuit.
It also alleged that the officers used excessive force and interfered with the right to record police in public places.
"The City of St. Louis has a custom or policy of retaliating against protesters expressing disapproval of the actions of law enforcement officers, and has done so on occasions before these particular protests, including in 2014," read the lawsuit.
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