Man Arrested For Sitting While Black Now Suing Cops (Who Were Just Exonerated)
The officers were exonerated of allegations they used excessive force, reports Bill Hudson at CBS/St. Paul:
Three St. Paul police officers involved in the January arrest of a man -- who recorded the incident and claimed he was being targeted because he was black -- have been cleared of allegations that they used excessive force, police announced Friday.But Christopher Lollie's still angry, and he's now suing the city and the three officers for stopping and arresting him without probable cause, for false imprisonment and for using excessive force.
Lollie was being questioned, and then confronted, by three St. Paul police officers in a downtown St. Paul skyway when things went from bad to worse.
"It's stressful, but I'm glad there's a light being shined on the situation," said Lollie from his attorney's law office.
Lollie was waiting to meet his children at a nearby daycare in what he thought was a public area of the First National Bank building.
Security officers there asked him to leave and Lollie, who is African-American, refused when he spotted other non-minorities in the same area.
That's when officer Lori Hayne first approached Lollie, whom his lawyers say was under no legal obligation to give his name to Hayne.
Lollie's attorney, Paul Applebaum, said, "The situation went downhill from there as other officers were called in to respond."
Those other two officers, Michael Johnson and Bruce Schmidt, arrived and pushed Lollie up against a skyway wall.
While Lollie complied with officers, he continued to exclaim he had done nothing wrong.
Soon after, he was struck with the electric probes of an officer's Taser gun.According to his civil lawsuit, Lollie suffered "bruising, burns and lacerations and has endured humiliation and emotional distress."
Applebaum, his attorney, said Lollie was doing nothing wrong, and didn't resist police.
"You can't stop citizens who aren't breaking the law and doing nothing suspicious and ask them to explain themselves," he said. You can't "ask for their identification and ask where they came from and where they are going."
This story, by Mara H. Gottfried in the Pioneer Press, has some of the reporting the other lacks. For example, the City Attorney saying that the area was, indeed, a public space:
Chris Lollie was in a public area of the St. Paul skyway when a security guard told police he was in a private area, the city attorney said Wednesday.A guard said the 28-year-old man was sitting "for some time" in a skyway-level lounge area designated for building employees, a police report said, and officers were responding to that information when they arrived, St. Paul City Attorney Sara Grewing said.
The guard's report led to the Jan. 31 encounter with police that has drawn national attention and criticism. Whether the downtown area where Lollie was sitting was public or private has been the crux of the case.
Lollie, of St. Paul, posted a cellphone video on YouTube last week that showed officers confronting and tasing him. The video, which Lollie titled "Black man taken to jail for sitting in public area," has been viewed more than 1 million times.
Lollie was charged with misdemeanor trespassing, disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process. The city attorney's office dismissed the charges July 31.
"Our job is not to second-guess the decision that officers on the streets make to maintain order and protect the public," Grewing said. "Our job as prosecutors is to determine whether those elements of a crime are present to prove to a jury, and we just didn't have that here."
The case was always clear to defense lawyer Luke Rezac. He felt so strongly that Lollie should not have been charged with trespassing while in a public place that he agreed to represent him for no charge.
Chris Lollie, when approached by police officers, was no longer in the space. (It sounds like he stuck around there after being told it was private because he realized it was not, and refused to put up with what he perceived as racism.)
He told the guard to go ahead and call the police, but when they took time to come, eventually got up and began walking through the skyway. It seems the police thus had no probable cause to ask him for ID -- and Minnesota is a state where you don't have to give your ID to a police officer (called "stop and identify") unless there's "reasonable suspicion of criminal activity." (As Elizabeth Nolan Brown puts it in that reason.com link:
Unless "being a black man in public" qualifies as reasonably-suspicious behavior, I'm not sure how Lollie's case meets this legal requirement.
Oh, but wait -- not showing ID makes you suspicious! -- one argument goes. And Nolan Brown for the win:
Community cops should not have a right to stop anyone they want for any (or no) reason and then use force against them if they refuse to show an ID. That is not constitutional policing, that is the mark of a police state.
My earlier post on this is here.
via the wonderful police watchdog, @radleybalko
Grifter.
Art Deco at November 18, 2014 3:16 PM
Aren't you the guy who affirmed that the skywalk reached the sixteenth floor of the building?
Yes.... Yes, I believe you are.
> It is rather curious that he waits
> for the bus on the 16th or 17th
> floor of a commercial building.
It was one of about fifteen dance steps you practiced, and then abandoned, before you left the disco in a cloud of clumsy, graceless shame.
Your problem with this guy is not his behavior.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at November 18, 2014 8:36 PM
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