Normally, suing police for failing to prevent crime is not allowed by courts. But a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has just allowed a lawsuit against the City of San Jose and its police department to proceed, despite this general presumption (called "qualified immunity") that police cannot be held responsible for failing to prevent crime.
News media, both local and national, watched and recorded as San Jose police stood aside as people leaving a Trump rally in San Jose were heinously assaulted by anti-Trump thugs. The Washington Post at the time (June 2016) reported:
quote:
Protests outside a Donald Trump rally in downtown San Jose spun out of control Thursday night when some demonstrators attacked the candidate's supporters.
Protesters jumped on cars, pelted Trump supporters with eggs and water balloons, snatched signs and stole "Make America Great" hats off supporters' heads before burning the hats and snapping selfies with the charred remains.
Several people were caught on camera punching Trump supporters. At least one attacker was arrested, according to CNN, although police did not release much information.
Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle explains the Ninth Circuit's logic in allowing the lawsuit to proceed:
quote:
If the allegations are true, "the officers acted with deliberate indifference to a known and obvious danger" and violated the Trump supporters' constitutional rights," said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
After the rally at the McEnery Convention Center, police directed those in attendance to leave from a single exit. There, according to the lawsuit, they were ordered to head out onto a street where hundreds of anti-Trump protesters were waiting, even though a safer route and other exits were available.
They funneled the Trump-supporters into a space dominated by hostile demonstrators who already had been violent. In my opinion, this constitutes collaboration in the violence.
The court decision wrote:
quote:
[T]he attendees alleged sufficiently that the officers increased the danger to them by shepherding them into a crowd of violent protesters and that the officers acted with deliberate indifference to that danger. The district court therefore correctly denied the officers qualified immunity.
While San Jose may appeal to the Supreme Court, delaying the lawsuit from proceeding, once court proceedings begin, the extensive documentation of the violence with police watching will be powerful and persuasive evidence. Here is a screen grab illustrating that point from a YouTube video (hat tip: Breitbart):
The lawyer for the plaintiffs is Harmeet Dhillon, a hero of mine. In addition to being the Republican national committeeman from California, she represents James Damore in his lawsuit against Google for firing him over critical views expressed about diversity. She richly deserves a large contingency fee if these lawsuits succeed and result in substantial judgments against wealthy defendants who discriminate on the basis of political preferences.
I have to wonder: given two sensible decisions of late (this is the other one, affirming a Second Amendment right to open carry), has the Ninth Circuit been affected by the need to wade through poop and dirty drug needles getting to its courthouse in San Francisco and decided that leftist madness has gone too far?
Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity
DISCLAIMER: These are the author's own personal views and do not represent the views of the author's employer.
July 30, 2018, 08:26 AM
Sig2340
Good.
Now strip all the police who were present of qualified immunity.
Nice is overrated
"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government." Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
July 30, 2018, 08:36 AM
BamaJeepster
Somebody has kidnapped the judges of the Ninth and replaced them with imposters...or someone took their little red Mao book and switched out a copy of the constitution in it's place!
This is like the 3rd or 4th ruling in the past few months where they actually followed the constitution. It's amazing!
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” - John Adams
July 30, 2018, 08:38 AM
joel9507
quote:
Originally posted by Sig2340: Good.
Now strip all the police who were present of qualified immunity.
Yep. They also need to get discovery going.
Wouldn't it be interesting to find some email coordinating the police inactivity with the mob's leadership?
July 30, 2018, 08:43 AM
Blackmore
Rest assured San Jose will request an en banc review. I'll believe the Ninth has changed if the plaintiffs prevail before the full panel.
Harshest Dream, Reality
July 30, 2018, 12:00 PM
oddball
The Mayor and Chief of Police are responsible for that day. It's been said the two ordered their officers to herd the exiting crowd of Trump supporters directly towards the protesters, and also ordering their officers to stand down. And the Mayor actually directly blamed Trump for the violence.
"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
July 30, 2018, 12:09 PM
parabellum
Disgusting, oath-violating, responsibility-abdicating and dangerous behavior. I hope that depatment and the individual officers involved get the ever-loving shit sued out of them. I hope it hurts, for a long time, and badly. I hope the civil action against them destroys their lives. Really, I do. Reap it.
_______________________________________________
“What sickens me about left-wing people, especially the intellectuals, is their utter ignorance of the way things actually happen.” ~ George Orwell
"That's one thing about intellectuals. They've proved that you can be absolutely brilliant and have no idea what's going on." ~ Woody Allen
July 30, 2018, 12:21 PM
konata88
The progressive left is more and more demonstrating that they aren't just different ideologically but that they are actually evil.
The idiots that follow them need to realize this and wake up. Otherwise, they will take the brunt of the clashes in the future when the last straw is laid and the Right push back hard.
"Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." L.Tolstoy "A government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned." Shepherd Book
July 30, 2018, 02:03 PM
Il Cattivo
I don't know why this would come as a surprise - the Left has been honing their legal arguments against "kettling" and other crowd management tactics for decades in California. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole legal basis for the Circuit's decision turned out to be (unintentionally) gifted to us by SFPD.
July 30, 2018, 02:15 PM
sjtill
My brother-in-law was there and saw this happen, so I know it was a gross violation of any responsibility to keep the peace.
_________________________ “Remember, remember the fifth of November!"
July 30, 2018, 02:32 PM
corsair
quote:
Originally posted by Il Cattivo: I don't know why this would come as a surprise - the Left has been honing their legal arguments against "kettling" and other crowd management tactics for decades in California. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole legal basis for the Circuit's decision turned out to be (unintentionally) gifted to us by SFPD.
I was thinking the same. Liberal protestors have been legally challenging police crowd control tactics for so long, that this one may be the case that bites them in the ass. As for SJPD and their compliant chief, shame.
Supporters of presidential candidate Donald Trump who were roughed up by protesters at a June 2016 campaign rally in San Jose can sue the city and its police for allegedly putting them in danger and then failing to protect them, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
If the allegations are true, “the officers acted with deliberate indifference to a known and obvious danger” and violated the Trump supporters’ constitutional rights,” said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
After the rally at the McEnery Convention Center, police directed those in attendance to leave from a single exit. There, according to the lawsuit, they were ordered to head out onto a street where hundreds of anti-Trump protesters were waiting, even though a safer route and other exits were available.
Twenty plaintiffs in the suit said they were beaten or struck by objects thrown by the protesters, and one plaintiff said an officer told her that police had been instructed not to intervene. The plaintiffs said police arrested three people for allegedly assaulting officers, but no one for attacking Trump supporters.
City of San Jose Attorney Richard Doyle said he will discuss whether to appeal en banc or to the Supreme Court in the coming days.
“We got the mayor and police chief dismissed from the case earlier,” Doyle said in an email. “We tried to do the same here with respect to certain police officers.”
The decision will allow plaintiffs to conduct discovery, unless the city appeals.
Dhillon said she anticipates resistance, but hopes to get planning documents from the police to provide insight on who they prepared for the rally that night.
“I heard from many San Jose police officers off the record, and they said they were told to stand down and they were disgusted by that,” Dhillon said.
The judges seemed to favor the plaintiffs’ position during oral arguments in April.
“There was an angry mob at the end of one exit while police said the other exits were blocked,” said Fletcher during the hearing. “That sounds like the state created danger.”
It was a sentiment Nelson echoed in Friday’s decision.
“Being attacked by anti-Trump protesters was only a possibility when the attendees arrived at the rally,” Nelson wrote in the panel’s 28-page opinion. “The officers greatly increased that risk of violence when they shepherded and directed the attendees towards the unruly mob waiting outside the Convention Center.”
But the judges also acknowledged that Dhillon will have to meet a higher bar for plaintiffs to pass as the case proceeds.
...
The lawsuits need to be punitive and they need to hurt.
July 30, 2018, 02:46 PM
gearhounds
These guys fucked up badly, and deserve to be punished. I have had to pull security at some events, basically providing protection for some loathsome people. But an assault in my presence is a crime regardless of the victim, and I am duty bound to act.
There is NO PERSON in my chain of command that has the authority to tell me not to intervene or arrest someone assaulting another person.
I hope every one of them lose their jobs. I hope whoever ordered them to stand by are sued into oblivion.
“Remember to get vaccinated or a vaccinated person might get sick from a virus they got vaccinated against because you’re not vaccinated.” - author unknown
July 30, 2018, 07:33 PM
Sig2340
quote:
Originally posted by gearhounds: These guys fucked up badly, and deserve to be punished. I have had to pull security at some events, basically providing protection for some loathsome people. But an assault in my presence is a crime regardless of the victim, and I am duty bound to act.
There is NO PERSON in my chain of command that has the authority to tell me not to intervene or arrest someone assaulting another person.
I hope every one of them lose their jobs. I hope whoever ordered them to stand by are sued into oblivion.
quote:
I heard from many San Jose police officers off the record, and they said they were told to stand down and they were disgusted by that,” Dhillon said.
Here is what I favor. This miserable excuse for excrement "just followed orders" too.
