Seattle activist pepper-sprayed while talking on phone sues city and police

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Seattle activist pepper-sprayed while talking on phone sues city and police

Oliver Laughland
Thursday 29 January 2015 21.52 GMT

A Seattle high school history teacher who was pepper-sprayed by police as he walked home from a Black Lives Matter rally on the Martin Luther King holiday is suing the city and the police for $500,000.

Newly released video shows the moment Jesse Hagopian, a popular city activist who had earlier addressed the rally, was sprayed directly in the face by a white female police officer as he talks on his mobile phone and appears to be be walking away from the police line.

Hagopian’s lawyer, James Bible, said the use of force was unprovoked.

“His eyes were burning, his nostrils were inflamed, his ear was burning,” Bible told the Guardian, adding that Hagopian had been on the phone to his mother at the time the incident occurred. Hagopian had planned on returning home to celebrate the second birthday of his child.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/29/jesse-hagopian-pepper-sprayed-seattle-black-lives-matter-rally-sues

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. A lot of these things happen ( in PART) because ....

... public employees are generally immune from personal liability suits.

This ought NOT to be. Mr. Hagopian.... like many other victims... may in fact sue and win. But it's the CITY that will pay, not the perpetrator.

Which is to say that the taxpayer... not the perpetrator.... will be penalized for what amounts to a criminal assault, judging by the video.

Good luck to Mr. H ( whom I've seen speak and probably met) in his lawsuit. But where's the $$$ incentive for the cops to act responsibly?