A group of demonstrators who protested against the in-custody death of George Floyd and the fatal shooting of Andres Guardado in May and June sued Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva and the county this week, saying deputies violated their civil rights by using excessive force and mass arrests.
Filed by attorneys on behalf of the protesters in federal court on Thursday, the lawsuit seeks class-action status and mirrors a similar complaint brought against the LAPD in June on behalf of Black Lives Matter-LA, which alleged the mass detention of more than 2,600 demonstrators in downtown Los Angeles was a violation of their rights under the U.S. and California constitutions.
A Sheriff’s spokeswoman said Friday afternoon that her department had not yet received the lawsuit and could not comment on the allegations.
The lawsuit contends that on at least three occasions — near Pan Pacific Park on May 30, in Grand Park in front of Los Angeles City Hall on June 3, and in Compton on June 21 —Sheriff’s Department deputies imposed arbitrary curfews, declared unlawful assemblies without ensuring that their order was heard, subjected peaceful protesters to excessive detention without access to bathrooms or medical care and used “indiscriminate and unreasonable force” against protesters, including batons and/or so-called rubber bullets.
“The consistent, frightening and forceful message that both the LAPD and the LASD have delivered to protesters in recent months is that the constitutional right to peaceably assemble as enshrined in the First Amendment will not stop the law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County from unleashing rough, indiscriminate violence and dangerous, retaliatory abuses of the powers vested in them,” the suit alleges.
The plaintiffs further allege that law enforcement targeted “people of color, especially Black people,” and that some of the tactics used were “designed to punish protesters.”
The lawsuit seeks to represent two classes of protesters whose rights of free speech and assembly were allegedly violated by the LASD — those who were arrested, and those that were allegedly subjected to the use of excessive force by the use of so-called “less-lethal” weapons, including batons, rubber bullets, pepper balls and tear gas “used indiscriminately against those engaged in peaceful protest.”
According to the suit, LASD acknowledged that the department’s “widespread involvement in the May/June protests resulted in deputies firing a sufficient amount of non-lethal ammunition to warrant a resupply to the Sheriff’s Department.”
The complaint also contends that LASD buses were used to detain protesters “under unconstitutional conditions.”
Demonstrators’ “wrists were bound in zip tie restraints in a manner tight enough to leave lasting marks and injuries,” according to the filing. “LASD then transported protesters to far-away locations and released them in the middle of the night, while Sheriff (Alex) Villanueva’s own curfew was in effect. While they were detained on the buses, LASD did not provide protesters water or access to bathroom facilities, despite their repeated complaints.”
Protesters named in the suit spoke of their arrests during the Grand Park protest in June, recalling a lack of social distancing inside detention buses and aggressive searches by deputies.
Deputies aggressively searched Christian Monroe, at one point “grabbing his genitals and rear during the arrest” and “yanked Christian’s mask around his neck and ripped it off,” the suit said.
Travis Wells recalled in the suit that during the Grand Park demonstration, deputies had detained a transgender woman inside the men’s bus.
Grace Bryant, another plaintiff, said during the June 21 protest in Compton – days after deputies shot 18-year-old Guardado in the back – she was teargassed, then arrested and kept inside a Sheriff’s Department van where deputies refused to allow her to use the restroom, forcing her to urinate inside the van.
Though most demonstrators were arrested for misdemeanors related to alleged violations of curfew or unlawful assembly orders, L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s office said in early June they do not plan on filing charges against protesters arrested on suspicion of those infractions.
