Tonight 75-year-od Martin Gugino has now filed a civil lawsuit against the city, the mayor, and the two officers caught on video shoving him to the ground during a protest on the steps of city hall. Gugino's story and this video you see here made international headlines last June.
About 50 officers assigned to the Portland police department's crowd control team resigned one day after one of the team's officers was indicted for allegedly using his department-issued baton to assault a protester last summer.
The wholesale resignation of the police department's Rapid Response Team (RRT) took place after a Multnomah County grand jury handed down an indictment Wednesday charging Officer Corey Budworth with fourth-degree battery. All the officers who resigned their positions on the team returned to their regular assignments.
Budworth is accused of shoving photographer Teri Jacobs to
the ground and using a baton to strike her during a protest last August -- an
incident that was caught on video and posted to social media....
Jacobs filed a lawsuit against the city that contains
screen-captured images from a Twitter user named "John the Lefty,"
and the video that person posted to Twitter shows an officer pushing Jacobs
with his baton, first while she's standing and then again while she's sitting
on the ground.
Budworth isn't named in the lawsuit, which alleges two
officers assaulted Jacobs: a John Doe 1 who "swung his (baton) like a
baseball bat" and an Officer 37 who pushed Jacobs with his baton, first
while standing and again once she was on the ground. A law enforcement source
said Budworth is the officer who is identified as "officer 37" in the
video, which was posted to Twitter and later cited in Jacobs' lawsuit.
"In this case, we allege that no legal justification
existed for Officer Budworth's deployment of force, and that the deployment of
force was legally excessive under the circumstances," Schmidt said.
The similarity between the Jacobs incident and the Gugino
incident is not only- as with pregnant Nicole Harper of Arkansas- that the
victims are white. Although Gugino allegedly had violated a curfew, there is
another similarity.
Jacobs and Gugino weren't assaulted because they presented a risk to the health and safety of individual citizens, police, or the community. They were attacked because they presented no danger or menace.
Police knew instinctively that if the person were part of a
large group, there would have been retaliation. Members of the group would have
turned against the police or against buildings in the immediate area. Instead, each was a defenseless individual, hence vulnerable. They were easy
targets.
In sports and elsewhere, it's sometimes referred to as
low-hanging fruit. It was easy- no mess,
no fuss; officer 1, civilian 0. There will be sporadic criticism- in Portland's
case, from a black member of the City Commission. However, if the victim happily turns
out to be white, there will likely be no mass protests nor a peep from any
organization a politician is beholden to.
Portland Police Chief Chis Davis, presumably fearful of
further tumult in his department, stated
Our entire organization, and not even just our sworn staff
but also our professional staff in the last 14 months has been put through
something, none of us have ever seen in our careers and at a level, and an
intensity that I don't think any other city in the United States has
experienced.
Nearly rationalizing the brutal action of a professional
under his command on the basis of generalized, ongoing stress, Davis would have
been derided if there had been several victims, even if they were participating
in illegal activities thretening the community.
Instead, Jacobs was surrounded by few if any supporters, was
in no position to respond to her attackers, and thus there was relatively
little immediate or continuing backlash. Indictment of one police officer is
inconsequential compared to what might have ensued if present were more
individuals, especially ones who could have retaliated.
But as with Gugino and Nicole Harper, there were not. There
was little to spark outrage on traditional or social media. Teri Jacobs, Martin
Gugino, and Nicole Harper, like George Floyd, were alone. Moreover, there were
few witnesses. They drew the short straw.
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