Posted on 09/24/2002 10:38:23 AM PDT by Dog Gone
A young couple among the more than 200 people arrested for criminal trespass at a Kmart parking lot filed a lawsuit today against the city of Houston, the police chief and other officers in charge.
Brandi Ratliff, 18, and William Ryan Grenwelge, 20, said they had stopped at the store Aug. 17 to purchase drinks and other items and to use the telephone to call Ratliff's mother.
As they were driving from the store's parking lot in the 8400 block of Westheimer to go to a friend's house, they were stopped by police officers yelling at them with at least one pointing a 9-mm gun in their faces, Ratliff said.
"We asked, `What's going on?' And they were screaming at us, `You'll be told in two or three hours. You're not being arrested. You're being held,'" the teen said as she began crying.
But she was arrested, handcuffed with plastic ties and spent the night in jail in the same cell with women charged with homicide and prostitution. Ratliff said she was finally able to call her parents, and they were able to bond her out by late morning.
"I'm traumatized for life. I used to look at cops as protecting us and not arresting innocent people," she said.
Their lawyer, Michael Kerensky , said the alleged civil rights violations are part of an ongoing city policy of "zero tolerance."
"The police target an area, arrest everyone in sight and let the courts sort them out," he said.
Dismissing the charges is not enough because that dismissal process is how the city has been able to perpetuate this type of police state, Kerensky said.
"That's how they always got away with it in the past. They just dismiss the charges and the people go away, but they usually targeted poor and disenfranchised people," he said.
The lawsuit requested a jury trial and did not specify monetary damages. But Kerensky said he hopes a jury awards his clients and others suing the city for the mass arrests enough money to deter city officials from such raids and he hopes that the awards anger taxpayers.
"I'm a taxpayer, too. When the tax coffers are hit perhaps the voters will realize that the city of Houston needs big changes in its leadership and in the police department," Kerensky said.
Is this the first? If so I am VERY surprised it took this long for this to begin.
I smell cheese.
The City is still mishandling this, big time. They should be aggressively seeking dismissal and expunging of records, reimbursement for bond costs and towing, and a small cash settlement in exchange for a waiver of the right to sue. Their failure to do so is going to cost the taxpayers a ton of money.
"I'm a taxpayer, too. When the tax coffers are hit perhaps the voters will realize that the city of Houston needs big changes in its leadership and in the police department," Kerensky said.
Wrong. They'll just pay the judgement bills, cut services, and raise taxes.
The way to get these people's attention is to somehow make them personally liable for paying the judgement.
That will catch their attention.
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