Legal Groups to File $200M Lawsuit Against Ferguson
Ferguson, MO – Three different legal groups have lowered the legal boom on Ferguson, Missouri. They include Black Lawyers for Justice, the National Bar Association and the American Civil Liberties Union. The $40-million lawsuit “seeks heavy damages and compensation for victims of excessive force, false arrest, and other Constitutional Rights violations” at the hands of the militarized Ferguson Police Department.
A federal lawsuit filed this month alleges that police in Ferguson and St. Louis County used excessive force and falsely arrested innocent bystanders amid attempts to quell widespread unrest after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, by a white police officer.
The five plaintiffs in the suit include a clinical social worker who said she and her 17-year-old son were roughed up and arrested after not evacuating a McDonald’s quickly enough. They also include a 23-year-old man who said he was shot multiple times with rubber bullets and called racial slurs by police while walking through the protest zone to his mother’s home, and a man who said he was arrested for filming the disturbances.
“The police were completely out of control,” said attorney Malik Shabazz of Black Lawyers for Justice, a group whose members were among those at the nightly protests that occurred for more than a week after Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, shot Brown, who was unarmed. In the days after the shooting, “it was virtually a police riot.”
The lawsuit seeks damages, and names Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, Ferguson officer Justin Cosma, and several unnamed officers identified collectively as John Doe; also the city and county governments.
Shabazz said the suit could be broadened to include additional plaintiffs. A St. Louis County police spokesman referred inquiries to County Counselor Patricia Redington, who said she had not seen the suit and declined comment.
A public relations consultant working for the city of Ferguson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
