Cop Hits Woman's Car At 94 MPH, Killing Her Infant. Police Arrest Woman For Negligent Homicide.

from the this-will-surely-endear-them-to-the-community dept

This is how things go in the US, where law enforcement is treated like a favored religion and everyone who isn't on the inside is just grist for prosecution mills. Here's the setup, via Matt Pearce.

A Baton Rouge police officer was arrested Friday on a count of negligent homicide, accused of going 94 mph in a Corvette when he caused an off-duty crash on Airline Highway that killed an infant and injured six others.

The officer, Christopher Manuel, 28, was driving north in a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette shortly after 8 p.m. Oct. 12 on Airline Highway when it struck a Nissan at the intersection at Florline Boulevard that was occupied by four adults and three children.

All of the occupants of the Nissan were taken to the hospital. One of those passengers, a 1-year-old baby, Seyaira Stephens, later died.

The van made a left turn in front of the off-duty officer. Both vehicles had a green light. The speed limit on this road was 50 mph. The speed the officer was traveling was verified by his Corvette's black box. Here's the positive news:

Manuel, of 8508 Greenwell Springs Road, was booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on a count of negligent homicide and speeding, Sgt. L'Jean McKneely, police spokesman, said.

The officer was booked and made bond. So far, so good. Here comes the avalanche of bad news.

Manuel, who has been on paid administrative leave since the accident, will remain on paid leave until after an internal investigation is concluded, McKneely said.

Due process, I suppose, even if it was clear the officer was traveling at nearly twice the posted speed limit. Much of the information needed to conclude the investigation was already in his department's hands, thanks to the Corvette's airbag control module, which recorded this data at the time of impact.

But if there's going to be any justice done, it's going to be severely delayed.

That investigation will not begin until he recovers from his injuries and is released to work by a doctor.

That's the sort of thing never extended to lowly civilians. No officer has ever told an injured arrestee to heal up before worrying about answering questions. No law enforcement agency has backburnered an investigation simply because its subject can't move around on their own yet.

But these investigations took no time to complete. No one at the Baton Rouge PD waited around for victims of the officer's reckless driving to be fully healed before they began their arrests.

Just weeks after a Baton Rouge police officer was arrested on negligent homicide and accused of causing a crash that injured several people and killed a baby, the child's mother was also arrested on the same charge because police said she failed to properly secure the baby's car seat.

Brittany Stephens, 20, was arrested Tuesday after police found that her daughter's car seat was not secured and the straps were not adjusted correctly for the child's height, according to her arrest report. Police said the "lack of securing the seat to the vehicle and the loose straps are a contributing factor in the death" of the child and "show gross negligence" on the mother's part.

Ah, the healing power of criminal charges, brought against someone involved in an accident that was no fault of her own. She (and her daughter) were just passengers in the van. Not to worry, the police issued citations to everyone else in the vehicle the officer hit. But the mother of the infant the cop killed is facing the same charges he is. And she's not going to be given a chance to rest up before the police move forward with their investigation. The PD has already wrapped this one up and forwarded charges to the DA's office.

East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore III said Tuesday his office has not yet determined whether Stephens or Manuel will face charges, but prosecutors "will review all reports, charges and arrests and make the appropriate decisions based upon facts and law."

There is nothing right about this, not even technically. The reckless driving performed by the officer should nullify the culpability of the people in the car he hit. While Officer Manuel may have had the right of way, his excessive speed changed the contours of the incident. In a case involving law enforcement officers manufacturing a reason to stop a car, a court pointed out unsafe driving by officers nullifies moving violations performed by other drivers.

[T]he Court finds as a matter of fact and law that Defendant did not fail to yield to the cruiser because the cruiser was not proceeding in a lawful manner. Rather, the cruiser was itself speeding on a dark, rainy night at low visibility further compromised by road glare. By proceeding in such a reckless manner – and in violation of both state and local law – Ofc. Davis forfeited the preferential status afforded a lawful driver under the right-of-way statute.

This isn't apples-to-apples (the court making this declaration was in Ohio, not Louisiana, where this accident took place) but it's a good rule of thumb. If someone is driving 44 mph over the speed limit, they've effectively forfeited their right-of-way status. A left turn taken in front of a speeding officer should give the officer zero preferential treatment in the eyes of the law. The officer should be 100% culpable for the damage and loss of life. Arresting a mother who lost her infant to an officer's reckless actions is needlessly cruel and serves zero deterrent purpose. Her daughter can't be killed again.

The way the Baton Rouge PD is handling this ensures Officer Manuel's eventual conviction will also have zero deterrent value. It shows officers the PD is willing to arrest victims of their unlawful actions and give them all the time they want -- with pay! -- to heal up before they're forced to confront the results of their recklessness. If the DA is smart, the charges against the mother will vanish and the cop will be rung up for his negligent actions.

Filed Under: baton rouge, brittany stephens, christopher manuel, negligent homicide, police, seyaira stephens

Court Tosses Cop's Lawsuit Against Social Movement, Twitter Hashtag

from the flipping-the-'fool-for-a-client'-adage dept

If you're a cop patrolling a demonstration and you get hit by a flying rock, you most likely shrug it off as the hazards of work and set out making an arrest. If you're one anonymous Baton Rouge cop, you sue ethereal non-entities and someone who did nothing more than speak at the protests where the officer was injured. (h/t Adam Steinbaugh)

We don't know who this cop is but we do know his lawyer, who had this to say about the recently-tossed lawsuit.

The officer's attorney, Donna Grodner, said in an email that she was "not at liberty to discuss the case."

This explains everything. Actually, considering the lawsuit aped one of Larry Klayman's more... um... inventive litigation escapades, the less said about the tossed suit, the better. In no particular order, AnonCop sued:

1. Activist DeRay Mckesson, who spoke at the Baton Rouge demonstrations.

2. Black Lives Matters -- a name used by several concurrent movements to protest police violence against blacks

3. A Twitter hashtag

The suit has been tossed -- hard -- by a Louisiana federal court. Dismissed with prejudice [PDF], which blocks AnonCop from attempting anything this ridiculous again -- at least against these defendants.

The court waves away the allegations against Mckesson as lacking in any evidence the activist was responsible for the rock/concrete that hit the suing officer.

In his Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that Mckesson "le[]d the protest and violence that accompanied the protest." (Id. at ¶ 3). As support for this contention, Plaintiff pleaded that Mckesson "was in charge of the protests[,] and he was seen and heard giving orders throughout the day and night of the protests." (Id. at ¶ 17). Further, Plaintiff avers that Mckesson "did nothing to calm the crowd" during the demonstration; rather, Mckesson "incited the violence." (Id. at ¶ 19). All of these allegations are conclusory in nature, however, and they do not give rise to a plausible claim for relief against Mckesson.

In order to state a claim against Mckesson to hold him liable for the tortious act of another with whom he was associating during the demonstration, Plaintiff would have to allege facts that tend to demonstrate that Mckesson "authorized, directed, or ratified specific tortious activity." Id. Plaintiff, however, merely states – in a conclusory fashion – that Mckesson "incited the violence" and "g[ave] orders," (id. at ¶¶ 17, 19), but Plaintiff does not state in his Complaint how Mckesson allegedly incited violence or what orders he allegedly was giving.

Then it gets to the even more ridiculous claims. The judge point out you can't sue Black Lives Matter because it's something people align with, not an actual entity representing BLM ideals. It's a movement participated in by many, but there is no official HQ for BLM all the franchisees report to.

"Black Lives Matter," as a social movement, cannot be sued, however, in a similar way that a person cannot plausibly sue other social movements such as the Civil Rights movement, the LGBT rights movement, or the Tea Party movement. If he could state a plausible claim for relief, a plaintiff could bring suit against entities associated with those movements, though, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Human Rights Campaign, or Tea Party Patriots, because those entities are "juridical persons" within the meaning of Louisiana law.

Nevertheless, Plaintiff merely has identified "Black Lives Matter" as a Defendant in his Complaint, and that term connotes a social movement that is not a "juridical person" and that lacks the capacity to be sued.

It's far more blunt about AnonCop's hashtag defendant, #BlackLivesMatter:

Plaintiff... is attempting to sue a hashtag for damages in tort. For reasons that should be obvious, a hashtag – which is an expression that categorizes or classifies a person's thought – is not a "juridical person" and therefore lacks the capacity to be sued. See La. Civ. Code art. 24. Amending the Complaint to add "#BlackLivesMatter" as a Defendant in this matter would be futile because such claims "would be subject to dismissal"; a hashtag is patently incapable of being sued.

The officer hoped to amend his lawsuit to include Black Lives Matter, Inc., which he discovered to be the entity on the receiving end of a donation he presumably made in hopes of finding a defendant he could actually sue. The court agrees this might make for a serviceable (in the legal sense of the word) defendant, but says there's nothing linking the recipient of his investigatory donation to the rock that hit his face.

Plaintiff's only attempt at characterizing the unidentified tortfeasor as an agent of Black Lives Matter Network, Inc., is located in paragraph 37 of the Proposed Amended Complaint, in which Plaintiff alleges that the tortfeasor was a "member of Defendant Black Lives Matter, under the control and custody of Defendants." Not only does Plaintiff specifically fail to mention Black Lives Matter Network, Inc., whatsoever, but Plaintiff also fails to allege that such an agency relationship existed between the tortfeasor and "Defendants" with anything more than a "[t]hreadbare recital[] of the elements" of agency, "supported by [a] mere conclusory statement[]." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Further, Plaintiff has failed to plead that Black Lives Matter Network, Inc., in particular, "had knowledge and specifically ratified" the unidentified tortfeasor's act of throwing a rock at Plaintiff, Claiborne Hardware, 458 U.S. at 930; Plaintiff merely alleges, in a conclusory fashion, that "Black Lives Matter leadership ratified all action taken during the protest," and that "Black Lives Matter promoted and ratified" the tortious conduct that gave rise to this suit.

If the officer has more money to waste, he can appeal the decision. But the caselaw is rock solid: you can't sue hashtags, social movements, or people who happened to be in the same city as the person who threw a rock at your head.

Filed Under: #blacklivesmatter, baton rouge, black lives matter, deray mckesson, donna grodner, hashtag, lawsuit

Store Owner Sues Baton Rouge Police For Seizing His CCTV Recording Of Alton Sterling Shooting

from the store-entirely-self-service-apparently dept

I don't get to use the phrase "with alacrity" that often, but Baton Rouge store owner Abdullah Muflahi's filing of a lawsuit against the Baton Rouge police can only be described as that.

Following the shooting of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police officers, Muflahi's store was raided by law enforcement officers who took the hard drive containing the store's surveillance camera footage of the altercation. So far, everyone involved has refused to discuss the illegal seizure of Muflahi's recording equipment, deferring to the FBI and its investigation of the shooting -- which would be something if the FBI would answer questions about the seizure and current location of the hard drive.. but it won't talk about it either.

Hence the speedily-filed lawsuit by Muflahi, as reported by Mike Hayes of Buzzfeed:

The owner of the Triple S Food Mart in Baton Rouge where Alton Sterling was fatally shot on July 5 says police detained him for hours while seizing his security footage of the incident without a warrant, according to a lawsuit [PDF] filed Monday.

28-year-old Abdullah Muflahi says that police at the scene placed him in a locked police car for four hours and denied him access to his cell phone, preventing him from contacting his family or an attorney.

According to the lawsuit, police wouldn't even allow Muflahi to go back into his store to use the restroom during his detention, forcing him to urinate outside of his store in full view of the public. And his detention didn't end there. Muflahi was taken back to the Louisiana State Police headquarters and held for another two hours while officers questioned him.

This all sounds very suspicious, illegal, and retaliatory. Muflahi not only had CCTV footage of the shooting, but also filmed it with his own cell phone, providing one of the two "unofficial" accounts of the arrest. While it's fantastic that a recent Supreme Court decision may have resulted in officers' reluctance to seize/search Muflahi's cell phone, the Fourth Amendment itself seemed to have little effect on their decision to enter his store and seize his recording equipment without a warrant. While the recording could correctly be described as "evidence," that doesn't excuse a warrantless entry or seizure.

The lawsuit, unfortunately, is a little thin when it comes to establishing anything that might overcome the immunity that shields individual officers from the consequences of their actions. While it does suggest the Baton Rouge Police Department's training is inadequate, it really doesn't go into detail as to why the court should be expected to believe this assertion. However, it does make an allegation that could be interesting if the court decides to explore it.

[Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie] has negotiated a contract with a union representing police officers that provides a blanket indemnification for police officers who are sued by the public from all claims no matter what the circumstances under which the claim arise and further provides that meritorious complaints about police officers are purged from employment files after only 18 months. Both contract provisions encourage aggressive conduct by police officers by minimizing consequences.

It's common knowledge that police union contracts are generally constructed to shield officers from not only public scrutiny, but internal misconduct investigations as well. Most of these are complemented by a "Law Enforcement Bill of Rights" that gives officers up to three days to ignore questions about alleged misconduct or excessive force. These "extra rights" are often granted in the face of police union pressure, and the unions themselves are heavily-involved in the drafting of department discipline policies. Unions also help fired officers regain their positions, making it even harder for law enforcement agencies to rid themselves of the "bad apples" continually spoiling the rest of the "bunch."

While there's zero chance any decision would result in an alteration of the union's relationship with the Baton Rouge police department or the policies it helped draft, any discussion would at least shine a little more light on how these unions tend to make bad policing/policies even worse.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, abdullah muflahi, alton sterling, baton rouge, evidence, video