Jennifer L. Henn  |  December 11, 2020

Category: Legal News

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Protesting police violence in California.

In the midst of a protest against police violence and racial injustice earlier this year, Deon Jones says he fell victim to those very same phenomena when he was shot in the face with a rubber bullet fired into the crowd by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department.

The “less lethal” bullet that hit him was one of many shot at demonstrators that night, and doctors told Jones he was very nearly blinded and could have been killed, he says.

On Wednesday, Jones filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against the city of Los Angeles, the LAPD, Police Chief Michel Moore, and the unidentified officers who directly caused his injuries the night of May 30. Jones and his lawyers are arguing that the city and police violated his civil rights under the U.S. and California constitutions, namely those amendments protecting free speech, due process, and equal protection under the law.

The protest Jones was attending at the time he was injured was held just five days after news broke that a Black man named George Floyd had been killed by a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck while he was handcuffed, killing him. Floyd’s death was captured on police body cams and cell phone video that aired widely on local and national television news programs shortly after it happened. The incident, and the video footage of it, sparked daily demonstrations in cities across the nation for weeks.

In some of those cities, police took a hard line in trying to control the crowds and soon allegations of excessive police violence and brutality were being leveled, including in Los Angeles.

Jones and the thousands of other demonstrators he marched and gathered with were “met with the same police brutality we saw in the 1960s, this time with a more modern and potentially more dangerous weapon – the ‘rubber bullet,’,” Jones’ lawyers claim in the lawsuit.

Jones, a 29-year-old Black man who lives and works in Los Angeles as a performance artist and entrepreneur, says he spent the day of May 30 participating in a peaceful protest along with thousands of others advocating for racial justice. He was in the neighborhood of West Hollywood, unarmed, cheering, and listening to speeches made by community leaders and activists for most of the day, he claims.

The trouble started when he attempted to leave, he says.

According to the lawsuit, that’s when tensions began rising in the crowd and an LAPD officer in riot gear, who was standing within a few feet of Jones, fired a rubber bullet at him “from close range.” Jones was hit in the face, below his eye.

The impact caused a fracture and lacerations to his cheek. The lawsuit says an ophthalmologist told Jones that if the bullet had struck millimeters from where he was actually hit, Jones could have been blinded or killed.

Protesting police violence in California.“The LAPD’s frequent oppression and mistreatment of peaceful demonstrators at these protests has been well-documented. Videos show LAPD officers attacking and threatening … and otherwise inflicting harm on protesters seeking only to exercise their First Amendment rights to advance the cause of racial justice,” Jones says in the legal complaint.

“Among its many aggressive tactics, the LAPD has repeatedly and indiscriminately shot Kinetic Impact Projectiles – commonly called ‘rubber bullets’… at large groups of protesters without regard for where they were being aimed.”

Jones’ legal team cites studies that indicate the rubber bullets, also known as “less lethal bullets,” can and do cause serious injury and death. Between 1990 and 2017, 71% of people struck by rubber bullets suffered severe injuries, 15.5% were permanently disabled and 3% died, the lawsuit claims. Almost half of the fatalities from rubber bullets were caused by shots to the head, the complaint says, as were more than 82% of permanent disabilities.

“It is time for the LAPD to stop deploying rubber bullets to suppress peaceful protests,” Jones and his lawyers say.

“This country was born in protest, and the Founders that created our nation inscribed the right to protest into the very first amendment of the Bill of Rights,” the lawsuit goes on to argue. “As the United States Supreme Court has acknowledged, ‘speech to protest racial discrimination is essential political speech lying at the core of the First Amendment,’.”

Officials at the LAPD have said publicly that the circumstances leading to Jones’ injuries are being investigated, as is the department’s overall handling of the protests in the city this year. And Jones’ lawsuit isn’t the first to be filed in the aftermath of the demonstrations. Black Lives Matter Los Angles is suing the city, as are many individual demonstrators who, like Jones, claim they were injured as a result of excessive police violence at peaceful protests.

Filed in June, the Black Lives Matter Los Angles lawsuit also claimed Los Angeles police arrested more than 2,600 peaceful protesters over the course of a week, many unfairly caught up by overzealous officers who were overreacting to the crowds. The organization also took issue with the city’s temporary curfew, which was put in place in early June as protesting surged, and unlawful rioting and looting broke out amid the chaos in some places.

Those supporting the police department’s actions say the strict measures were necessary to protect the city and its residents. Critics of the approach say it went too far.

Have you been the victim of police brutality or witnessed police violence? Tell us about it in the comment section below.

Jones is represented by Katherine Marquart, Orin Snyder, Mylan L. Denerstein, Karin Portlock, Lee R. Crain, Cassarah M. Chu, Greta Williams, Lauren M. Blas, Courtney M. Johnson, Lenore H. Ackerman, Mackenzie A. McCullough, Matthew S. Kahn, and Lauren D. Dansey of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP.

The Police Violence Lawsuit is Deon Jones v. City of Los Angeles, et al., Case No. 2:20-cv-11147, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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2 thoughts onProtester Who Was Nearly Blinded Sues Los Angeles Over Police Violence

  1. Alyssa Pay says:

    they spray pepper spray got me chocking and couldn’t breathe

  2. Robert Goudin says:

    Add me please

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