San Francisco PD vs Antioch PD

[JCady]

http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_10964274

SAN FRANCISCO — A San Francisco police inspector has filed a federal civil rights suit against Antioch, arguing that officers in the East Bay city illegally broke into her home and Tasered her last year during a dispute involving a tenant she was evicting.

Marvetia Lynn Richardson contends the officers' actions represent an Antioch Police Department policy to harass African-American residents to drive them out of certain neighborhoods in the city.

The allegations are denied by the defendants, who include the city, its police department, police Chief James Hyde, Sgt. Thomas Fuhrmann and several named officers. They state in court documents that Richardson was arrested with probable cause and that limited force was used. Antioch's city attorney could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The lawsuit says that two officers responded to Richardson's house on Mokelumne Drive after midnight on June 7, 2007, after a noise complaint by Bridget Reed, who lived with her teenage daughter in Richardson's upstairs bedroom. Richardson had served her with a 30-day eviction notice the week before.

Richardson at the time was entertaining two women friends — also plaintiffs in the suit — a teenager and several children who were excited about a trip to Great America the next day, the suit says.

Richardson asserts that after she invited the officers inside, they were rude and unprofessional, one telling her, "You wish you owned this home," after she identified herself as the homeowner.

The officers left the house and were standing outside when they heard screams and sounds indicating a struggle inside. Reed and her daughter then ran outside, saying that Richardson's teenage guest had threatened to shoot them.

During the conversation with Reed, officers began an audio recording in which they refer to Richardson as the "alleged homeowner" and "supposed homeowner." The lawsuit says that much of what followed was caught on that recording.

The officers then called Fuhrmann to the house, the lawsuit says. When no one answered the door, he ordered the officers to break it down. The teenager and another minor in a bedroom "pretending to be asleep" were immediately on suspicion of resisting arrest, the lawsuit says. The officers confronted Richardson as she stood in a bedroom doorway in her bedclothes.

The lawsuit says that in the audio recording, Richardson sounds irritated but is calmly answering the officers' questions when one suddenly shocks her with a Taser.

"How do you justify that?" the suit says Richardson asked the officers, who then arrested her and her two adult guests on suspicion of resisting arrest.

All charges filed against the women were dismissed this year after Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Charles Treat ruled that the officers entered Richardson's house illegally, according to the suit. The two minors arrested were not prosecuted.

The San Francisco Police Department placed Richardson on unpaid leave after her arrest. She is seeking compensation for lost wages, medical expenses and emotional distress. Her friends also seek compensation for emotional distress, with one asking for lost wages because the arrest prohibited her from obtaining a license to become a day care provider.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in July and is scheduled for jury trial in December 2009.

I really wonder how the "Blue Code Of Silence" is going to play out in this one, because this time the victim was a cop.

[KlavoHunter]

I'm placing my bets on the bigger of the two PDs coming out on top for this one.

[JCady]

It sounds like the Antioch PD guys didn't believe her when she identified herself as San Francisco PD -- one of the other articles I found on this reports that they refer to her as "this so-called SFPD lady" on the audio recording.

Also, they arrested her on "suspicion of resisting arrest", meaning they decided that she must have been lying to them about her identity -- providing false identification is the only form of resisting arrest where there can be suspicion, because the only other kinds of resisting arrest are threatening a police officer or fighting back against a police officer. Which are not exactly things that you can be "suspected" of.

[TrailerParkJawa]

I've been out of town so I haven't seen any TV news on this event but it will be interesting to see out how it turns out.
I'm sure this is very embarassing to the Antioch police. I'm not clear on why the cops were so "disbelieving" of her identity.

[Saxtonite]

from the article:

Marvetia Lynn Richardson contends the officers' actions represent an Antioch Police Department policy to harass African-American residents to drive them out of certain neighborhoods in the city.

wow. normally, in the past they would try to force African-Americans when moving from the South during the Great Migration into the ghettos by legal and informal ways, redlining being prime among it. That, and White Flight to the suburbs meant that wasn't really necessary to do. Well they can and did harass you when you were out of those enclaves. And in some suburbs, or even in the city you are likely to be harassed by police or people there. (there's a saying that the Mount Greenwood neighborhood in Chicago is one of the most racist parts of the city, the fact that large numbers of firefighters and police officers live there, and it being an irish catholic neighborhood.)

EDIT: and NWA's song "Fuck the Police" seems oddly fitting

[JCady]

I'm sure this is very embarassing to the Antioch police. I'm not clear on why the cops were so "disbelieving" of her identity.

Possibly because she's an African-American woman.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'm sure this is very embarassing to the Antioch police. I'm not clear on why the cops were so "disbelieving" of her identity.

Possibly because she's an African-American woman.

Indeed, when people think of 'police officer', African American woman is probably only ahead of 'asian woman' on their template of what an officer should look like.

[JCady]

I'm sure this is very embarassing to the Antioch police. I'm not clear on why the cops were so "disbelieving" of her identity.

Possibly because she's an African-American woman.

Indeed, when people think of 'police officer', African American woman is probably only ahead of 'asian woman' on their template of what an officer should look like.

The news reports states that she's an SFPD inspector with fourteen years on the force. It's my understanding that "inspector" is something of an oddball rank which varies widely from police force to police force; it's most commonly a high supervisory rank (one pay grade past captain in the LAPD, two past captain in the NYPD), but SFPD uses it as the basic detective rank instead. If Antioch has a "high" inspector rate, it's possible that the Antioch PD guys decided that there was no way a relatively young black woman could be an inspector, and on the basis of that conclusion charged her with suspicion of resisting arrest for supposedly lying to them about her identity.

It's worth noting that a court later threw out all charges against her because the police had entered her home illegally, which would indicate that the court didn't believe the officers' claim that they heard a fight going on inside after she told them to come back with a search warrant.

[Count Dooku]

First of all, I live in Antioch, CA. The city newspaper has been running stories of police profiling African Americans for about three years now. I can only say that one case I know the police department was not at fault, but about the others, I have doubts that the local department did their job adequately.

The case I know of happened only two doors down. I was talking to the guy who lives next door when a child ran out of the house (two, maybe a little older) and the mother ran after her. She beat, and I do mean beat the child. My neighbor and I called the police, as well as someone who was across the street. The woman was merely hand cuffed, and taken into custody. She filed suit against the department alleging that she had been beaten, and called racist slurs. I know for a fact that this did not occur.

However, in a city where there are 100,000 people and 1180 or so section 8 homes, it does seem like the African American community is more heavily targeted than anyone else. I know there are trouble makers in every community, but it seems disproportionate in the police department's focus. Not to sound like a conspiracy nut, but it seems like the Antioch PD uses the few actual cases of meth labs in section 8 houses and real problems in said homes to justify going after the entire section 8 populace. . .well, the populace that is black. I like the fact that they've taken down real problem houses, but I don't like rallying calls, and the scare tactics...

[TrailerParkJawa]

I'm sure this is very embarassing to the Antioch police. I'm not clear on why the cops were so "disbelieving" of her identity.

Possibly because she's an African-American woman.

Indeed, when people think of 'police officer', African American woman is probably only ahead of 'asian woman' on their template of what an officer should look like.

Funny, you mention that. I actually know 2 asian female in law enforcement although I admit they are pretty rare even for an area teeming with asians.

Actually, I was more curious as to why the cops had such a hard time believing she was the home owner? I guess I fail to see what advantage she would gain by lying about being the home owner.