Tag: Berkeley Protests

Milo’s Berkeley Event: Lawsuit Filed Against Berkeley & Violent Mob of Anarchists

Photo courtesy YouTube UC Berkeley Riots.

Plaintiffs:

JOHN JENNINGS, an individual; KATRINA
REDELSHEIMER, an individual; TREVER
HATCH, an individual; and DONALD
FLETCHER, an individual

Allegations:

1. Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment
(42 U.S.C. § 1983)
2. Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment
(42 U.S.C. § 1983 – Monell)
3. Violation of Ralph Act
(Cal. Civ. Code 51.7 & 52)
4. Violation of Bane Act
(Cal. Civ. Code §§ 52 & 52.1)
5. Civil Battery and Conspiracy
6. Negligence
7. Premises Liability; Negligence
8. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
9. False Imprisonment
DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL

Defendants:

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA; JANET NAPOLITANO, in
her official capacity as President of the
University of California; NICHOLAS B.
DIRKS, individually as former Chancellor of
University of California, Berkeley; CAROL T.
CHRIST, individually and in her official
capacity as Chancellor of University of
California, Berkeley; STEPHEN C. SUTTON,
individually and in his official capacity as
Interim Vice Chancellor of the Student Affairs

Division of University of California, Berkeley;
JOSEPH D. GREENWELL, individually and
in his official capacity as Associate Vice
Chancellor and Dean of Students of University
of California, Berkeley; MARGO BENNETT,
individually and in her official capacity as Chief
of Police of University of California Police
Department, at Berkeley; ALEX YAO,
individually and in his official capacity as
Operations Division Captain of University of
California Police Department, at Berkeley;
LEROY M. HARRIS, individually and in his
official capacity as Patrol Lieutenant of
University of California Police Department, at
Berkeley; IAN DABNEY MILLER, an
individual, RAHA MIRABDAL, a.k.a. SHADI
BANOO, an individual; CITY OF
BERKELEY, a municipal corporation (Berkeley
California); CITY OF BERKELEY POLICE
DEPARTMENT, a municipal subdivision
(Berkeley California); ANDREW R.
GREENWOOD, individually and in his official
capacity as Interim Chief of Police of the City of
Berkeley (Berkeley California); CITY OF
BERKELEY DOES 1-50; UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY DOES 51-100;
and RIOT DOES 101-150.
Defendants.

Full lawsuit includes photo documentation:

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/0579eca0bf695b09b40266abc/files/e5f11be7-76e3-4b99-bc2b-223439636793/complaint.pdf

Introduction to Complaint:

INTRODUCTION
1. This action seeks to protect and vindicate fundamental rights. It is a civil rights action brought under the Fourteenth Amendment against government actors responsible for creating dangerous conditions and exposing the Plaintiffs to physical harm caused by a violent mob of anarchists at a student-sponsored Milo Yiannopolous event (“Yiannopolous event”) scheduled to take place at the University of California, Berkeley (“UC Berkeley” and “University”) on February 1, 2017. Government actors took affirmative measures in preparation for and in response to the riotous mob that left the Plaintiffs in a situation more dangerous than the one in which they found the Plaintiffs.
2. Government actors are responsible for creating and exposing the Plaintiffs to the unlawful actions of an angry mob of violent anarchists by directing law enforcement officers to vacate locations in and around Sproul Plaza and the MLK Center at UC Berkeley, agitating the mob by
issuing feckless disbursal orders and empty threats of arrest from a vantage point where they could ensure their own safety while leaving Plaintiffs exposed to violent assaults, erecting barricades in such
a manner as to enable angry malefactors to surround Plaintiffs and assault them and to deprive Plaintiffs of an exit route, failing to enforce the law and by other affirmative actions. By their failure to intervene or employ reasonable tactical methods to ensure the safety of the Plaintiffs and the public, government actors conducted their official duties with deliberate indifference to the Plaintiffs’ safety, permitting hordes of violent rioters to swarm the university campus in a violent rage. By their failure, government actors are thus responsible for creating and exposing Plaintiffs to known and obvious danger.
3. This action additionally seeks relief from government actors who failed to exercise their duty of care to plan effectively for the foreseeable harms brought upon the Plaintiffs and from the perpetrators of unlawful assaults.

 

FIRE’s 2017 year in review for student and faculty rights on campus
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 28, 2017 — From students shouting down an invited speaker and injuring a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont to the violent Berkeley protests in California, the campus free speech debate swept the nation in 2017. Throw in the withdrawal of the federal government’s controversial “Dear Colleague” letter that for over six years threatened the due process rights of students and faculty accused of sexual misconduct, and it’s easy to see why the offices at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education were anything but quiet this year.
As 2017 comes to a close, FIRE looks back on a year of challenges and triumphs — a year during which more students and faculty members than ever before approached FIRE to help protect their rights.
“Students and faculty shouldn’t have to appeal to an outside organization like FIRE in order to exercise their speech rights or get a fair shake in campus judicial proceedings, but the sad reality is that they do,” said FIRE Executive Director Robert Shibley. “We worked with policymakers to help inform common-sense legislation and administrators to implement speech-friendly campus policies. And we’ll continue this work until student and faculty rights are secured.”
FIRE’s highlights from 2017 include:
  • FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program received more than 900 requests for help from students and faculty members across the country in 2017 — more requests than any other year in FIRE’s history. FIRE’s defense of student and faculty rights took us to Howard University, Fordham University, Wichita State University, University of New Hampshire, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and many more schools this year.
  • In February, FIRE released the first-ever nationwide report on campus Bias Response Teams. These teams encourage students to formally report on one another and on faculty members whenever they subjectively perceive that someone’s speech is “biased.” The report found that 232 public and private American colleges and universities publicly maintained bias response programs, affecting an estimated 2.8 million students.
  • In another win for FIRE’s Stand Up For Speech Litigation Project, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld FIRE’s victory at Iowa State University. And in March, the project filed a new lawsuit against the Los Angeles Community College District that aims to free over 150,000 students from unconstitutional free speech zones. The litigation project’s 13 total lawsuits have so far restored free speech rights to more than 270,000 students.
  • In May, Tennessee passed bipartisan legislation that FIRE called “the most comprehensive state legislation protecting free speech on college campuses that we’ve seen be passed anywhere in the country.” The legislation requires institutions to adopt policies consistent with the University of Chicago’s Free Speech Policy Statement, prohibits the use of misleadingly labeled “free speech zones,” bars institutions from rescinding invitations to speakers invited by students or faculty, and more. Campus free speech legislation also passed this year in Colorado, Utah, and North Carolina.
  • In September, FIRE released a first-of-its-kind report on due process at America’s top universities, which found that 85 percent of schools rated received a D or F grade for not ensuring due process rights. Shockingly, 74 percent of top universities do not even expressly guarantee accused students the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
  • Just two days after the due process report was released, the Department of Education announced it would rescind the controversial 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter that threatened the due process rights of students and faculty accused of sexual misconduct on campus. For six and a half years, FIRE led the fight against the misguided letter.
  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions mentioned FIRE’s work in a speech on the importance of free speech at Georgetown University. Sessions highlighted FIRE’s Spotlight database and our lawsuit against the Los Angeles Community College District. The Department of Justice later filed a statement of interest in the lawsuit.
  • In October, FIRE released a groundbreaking survey on free speech that found a majority of students on college campuses self-censor in class, support disinviting some guest speakers with whom they disagree, and don’t know that so-called “hate speech” is usually protected by the First Amendment. The study also found that Republican and Democratic students have different opinions on campus protests, disinvitations, and hate speech protections.
  • FIRE’s So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, launched in Spring 2016, released its 50th episode. The bi-weekly show takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through personal stories and candid conversations. This year the podcast featured Daryl Davis, a black musician who convinces people to leave the Ku Klux Klan through open dialogue; the all-Asian rock band The Slants, who took their free speech fight all the way to the Supreme Court and won; and Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU, on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
  • Earlier this month, Emory University became the 11th institution to earn FIRE’s highest, “green light” rating in 2017, bringing the total number of green light institutions to 37.
  • And just last week, FIRE released its annual Spotlight on Speech Codes report, which found that the number of colleges with FIRE’s poorest, “red light” rating for maintaining speech codes that both clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech is down to 32.3 percent — seven percentage points lower than last year and almost 42 percentage points lower than in FIRE’s 2009 report.
“For the tenth year in a row, the most harmful speech codes are coming off the books throughout the country,” said Shibley. “But the growth of bias response teams, the continued disinvitation of invited speakers and — most alarmingly — the violence on too many campuses show us that we have a lot of work to do in 2018 and beyond.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending liberty, freedom of speech, due process, academic freedom, legal equality, and freedom of conscience on America’s college campuses.