OAKLAND, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Protestors who sued the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department will be able to move forward with their lawsuit, except for their conspiracy claim that alleged they were targeted because of their religion or nationality.
U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg on Oct. 1 largely denied the motion to dismiss by the County and Sheriff Gregory Ahern in a case brought by Jasmine Gaffett, Kierra Brown and Toshua Sears earlier this year over the mutual aid provided by Alameda County to the Oakland Police Department.
The plaintiffs all participated in demonstrations against police brutality in the days following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. All three plaintiffs say that the law enforcement responding to the peaceful demonstrations wrongfully used specialty impact munitions, kinetic impact projectiles, projectile impact weapons, explosive stun grenades, tear gas and chemical agents against the protestors in direct violation of the Oakland Police Department's own Crowd Control and Crowd Management policy.
The protestors accuse the defendants of ultimately inflicting "the same sort of ruthless violence on the demonstrators that the demonstrators were protesting."
The plaintiffs suffered various injuries from the police's alleged unlawful force, including a broken finger, nerve damage, deep muscle bruising and others.
Judge Seeborg wrote that they have adequately plead most of their arguments, e.g. that a failure to train led to their injuries. The plaintiffs also claim the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department authorized the use of impact munitions without justification.
Deputies did Oakland’s “dirty work” by using them because Oakland’s policy forbids it, the plaintiffs say. Oakland is also named as a defendant.
“Plaintiffs have pled plausibly that Sheriff Ahern was a cause of wrongful conduct,” Seeborg wrote. “This is particularly true for the second protest: even if the first protest was a fluke no Sheriff could have prevented, the same behavior repeating itself days later suggests wrongful conduct.”