The suits, the first major action since the September convention, request damages ranging from $100,000 to $1 million, and name Ramsey County and its sheriff’s department, St. Paul and its police and Minneapolis and its police as defendants.
For example, a University of Minnesota employee alleges that she was singled out by law enforcement officers and strip-searched in front of men. Others claim unlawful suppression of both individuals and independent media.
Attorney Ted Dooley, who is representing seven of the plaintiffs who filed the cases, said he’s optimistic about his clients’ chances either in out-of-court settlements or before juries, should any of the cases make it to trial.
“The specifics in the cases vary as you’d expect, but the underlying harm is either the willful or blatantly ignorant attack of the people who were there to express political dissent,” he said. “There was an utter disregard for the right to do that.”
As a condition of hosting the RNC, the city of St. Paul requested the convention host committee pay the $1.1 million premium on a $10 million insurance policy that would cover suits stemming from RNC-related police action.
St. Paul City Attorney John Choi said the city has forwarded the lawsuits to the insurance company providing the policy.
“I expect that the insurance policy would cover the other defendants,” he said.
The insurance company will hire outside counsel to handle the defense of the defendants named in the suits.
Minneapolis spokesman Matt Laible said the city attorney’s office has not yet seen the suits against Minneapolis and also said it is policy not to comment on pending litigation.
The much-scrutinized Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department and St. Paul Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.
'I think it was meant to degrade me'
Michelle Gross, president of the civil rights group Communities United Against Police Brutality, also works as manager of staff training and development for University of Minnesota Physicians.
In her $250,000 suit, she alleges Ramsey County Sheriff’s deputies strip-searched her, and only her, in the presence of men during the Aug. 29 raid of a meeting space used by protesters.
Gross said she was compliant with the deputy, but believes she was targeted because she was wearing an anti-police brutality T-shirt and videotaping the raid.
She says the officer touched under her bra and around the top of her underwear while she was being merely detained, not arrested.
“I felt pretty weird about it at the time, but there was so much other weirdness going on,” Gross said. “The whole thing was surreal, it was just bizarre.”
The rented house that was raided was used only as a central point for protesters to meet and talk — First Amendment-protected activities, Gross said.
In addition to the monetary damages she’s seeking, Gross also said she hopes her suit forces policy changes.
“I want them to not do this to anybody else,” she said. “I think it was a power move and I think was meant to degrade me.”
'This series of attacks on free speech...'
Protester Jason Johnson of Oakland, Calif., filed a $1 million suit against the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and more than a dozen officers from the two departments.
Officers at a protest in Mears Park on Sept. 2, the second day of the convention, plucked Johnson from a crowd of protesters and used a Taser on him.
Afterward, according to the suit, Johnson raised his hands and offered no resistance. Police continued to repeatedly use the Taser on Johnson.
The suit states Johnson required medical attention for seven separate Taser wounds and was bloodied during “the battery.” He also reportedly suffered “severe emotional distress” and requires “continuing medical care for the trauma of the unlawful tasering .”
Johnson said the police action was unprovoked.
“At all times relevant to this lawsuit, [he] acted peaceably and in a law-abiding fashion before he was tasered,” the suit reads.
Though the incident in question happened in downtown St. Paul, the city of Minneapolis is also named in the suit because some officers from its police department were involved.
'...and particularly on our freedom of the press'
Wendy Binion of Portland, Ore., came to the RNC as a journalist for Portland Indymedia. She filed a $100,000 suit against the city of St. Paul and more than a dozen St. Paul police officers who took her into custody during the same Mears Park protest where police used a Taser on Johnson.
She was one of the first people arrested at the start of an evening that would hours later culminate in police using tear gas, concussion grenades and “less-lethal” projectiles.
The diminutive Binion questioned the force of multiple riot gear-clad police that handled her. Police also seized the camera she was using to videotape the demonstration and other personal effects.
She was initially charged with a riot-related felony, but that was dismissed. She faces no charges now, but she said she’s heard she’s under investigation for criminal conspiracy to commit riot, a probe that could be open for several years.
Binion said she was peacefully carrying out her duties as a journalist, but was targeted because she is part of the independent media.
Police took her camera and by the time she got it back, Binion said, it was damaged.
“They were taking away people’s right to document their own history,” she said.
Attorney Dooley said the police force at the RNC, made up of more than 100 different law enforcement entities that signed joint-powers agreements, “coordinated this series of attacks on free speech and particularly freedom of the press.”
Karlee Weinmann is a senior staff reporter.
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