Jury awards $8.25M to Black mother, daughters handcuffed outside Castro Valley Starbucks

[hookaleft]

Source: ktvu

CASTRO VALLEY, Calif. - A federal jury awarded a mother and her two daughters $8.25 million after they were unlawfully searched and handcuffed by Alameda County sheriff's deputies at a Castro Valley Starbucks on their way to taking one of the young women to a college math test in Berkeley.

The women were not physically harmed by law enforcement, but the dollar amount of the award signals that the jurors felt the family's constitutional rights had been stripped from them because of the color of their skin.

"I think that everybody recognizes we all have implicit bias," their attorney, Craig Peters of San Francisco, said in an interview on Monday. "I have it. You have it. We've all got it. These officers are no different. And so, subconsciously, there was something going on that made them unreasonably suspicious of this family. I think that if this same scenario happened and these were white women, it would have played out very differently."

The verdict was reached March 1 following a two-day civil trial before U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup in San Francisco. A jury deliberated for 16 hours before awarding the mother and daughters this unprecedented amount from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.


Read more: https://www.ktvu.com/news/jury-awards-8-25m-to-black-mother-daughters-handcuffed-outside-castro-valley-starbucks

---

There is bodycam footage at the link. The cops were out of control.

[Traildogbob]

1. Great for them

But cops should pay, not taxpayers. “Citizens” should not foot the awarded penalties for consistent police abuse, against “citizens”.

[RandiFan1290]

2. Taxpayers foot the bill

and the two racist cops get promoted

[samnsara]

7. they needed to get more...

[live love laugh]

23. Agree but it definitely helps with college tuition. 👍🏾

[yardwork]

8. Police behavior reflects community expectations.

Police brutality will stop when the wealthy, powerful members of every community change their own attitudes toward Black and brown people.

[live love laugh]

25. Police behavior reflects WHITE communities' expectations.

Black communities, notsomuch.

Many decent, hard working, tax paying black citizens are treated poorly by police just because they happen to live in lower-income communities where crime flourishes.

[IcyPeas]

3. And the 2 deputies were promoted.

An Internal Affairs investigation found that the deputies did nothing wrong, according to Peters.

Both Holland and Pope are now sergeants.

(From the link in the OP)

[riversedge]

10. The so-called investigation obviously did not any accounts from the family.

[EarthFirst]

4. It ought to be paid from their pension fund...

No more municipal budget / insurance settlements.

Perhaps law enforcement conduct might swiftly change course.

Here’s a jumping off point:

https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb20-217

[NullTuples]

14. Can't, thanks to the Roberts / McConnell Supreme Court

That's exactly why they created the doctrine of Qualified Immunity; so cops can't be personally held responsible for their own actions.

[yaesu]

5. And the lawsuit should have included a billboard reminding the citizens that their

Police department wasted 8.25 million in tax money.

[yardwork]

9. Yes!

[Tanuki]

6. How awful for that innocent family. I'm glad the girl made it to her math test...

but it made her 40 minutes late and imagine how flustered that insulting and frightening experience must have made her, going in to the test. I'm also glad to read she's doing well academically and is about to graduate UCLA! As bad as this was, if it had been a Black dad and sons instead of mom and daughters they might very well have been injured or killed by those cops.

[live love laugh]

26. Yep black men are treated much worse sadly.

[intheflow]

11. THIS is why we say ACAB and defund the police.

Cannot believe there’s another active thread where many DUers are defending cops in Georgia for charging protesters who don’t want to expand police power with domestic terrorism. (Not this thread, one about the Georgia cop camp.) These two officers should have been fired, not promoted. smdh

[pnwmom]

12. This was in Sept 2019, so they were 14 and 16 -- i.e., GIRLS, not "young women,"

as the article called them.

And imagine this happening on your way to taking an SAT!

[NullTuples]

15. I agree, but if we're going to be pedantic - and we should - wouldn't that be the PSAT?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

17. No, it wouldn't.

They were parked in a disabled spot, and were at the coffee shop early to take Aasylei Hardge-Loggervale to a statistics test in Berkeley on time. She was attending community college and was planning on transferring her credits to UCLA.

[NullTuples]

22. Thank you for the correction; I made a bad assumption based on her age at the time of the incident

[eggplant]

18. I took the SAT at 12.

If you're going to be pedantic, at least try to be correct.

[NullTuples]

21. Thank you for the correction and for teaching me something!

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. That's multiple times more than some families get for wrongful death suits

In red states anyway.

[IronLionZion]

16. Pretty obvious profiling/prejudice

those cops had absolutely no probable cause or any crime to charge them with.

[republianmushroom]

19. I like it

[ificandream]

20. I like the decision, but I really have a problem with this story since it comes from a Fox affiliate

This part really bothers me.

"I think that everybody recognizes we all have implicit bias," their attorney, Craig Peters of San Francisco, said in an interview on Monday. "I have it. You have it. We've all got it. These officers are no different. And so, subconsciously, there was something going on that made them unreasonably suspicious of this family. I think that if this same scenario happened and these were white women, it would have played out very differently."

Sorry, but this is both bullshit and an attempt to legitimize what the officers did. Typical Fox "news" bullshit.

[MichMan]

24. It was said by the attorney for the plaintiffs that won their case.

Do you think he didn't say what was broadcast on TV and Fox used an actor in his place ?

[ificandream]

29. If I was the reporter I'd have left it out of the story.

Just because the attorney said something stupid like that doesn't mean it needed to be reported. And it wasn't really relevant to the story. It's called news judgment. (Something I was taught in journalism school.)

[SunSeeker]

27. I hope the daughter was allowed to make up her missed test at Berkeley.

Glad to see a significant verdict. I hope it helps deter future racist stops.

[Hortensis]

28. Love the increase in societal standards. The jury returned

an emphatic "totally unacceptable."

This kind of abuse has always been so common, and usually people have no recourse.

More!