Court: Trump Supporters Can Sue San Jose Over Mob Attack
Police failed to protect rally attendees from a violent anti-Trump mob: “Someone needs to be held accountable for it”
Two years ago, Trump held a campaign rally in San Jose, California. By the time the event was over, a mob had gathered outside the venue and for some reason, attendees were made to walk the gauntlet through the angry crowd.
We covered the story at the time, Violent Anti-Trump Protestors Go Wild after San Jose Event.
Watch: The moment a Trump supporter, surrounded by protesters, is egged in the face, hit by other food. pic.twitter.com/qYFdwJWvrS
— Jacob Rascon (@KPRC2Jacob) June 3, 2016
Trump supporter gets sucker punched. He later identified the man he believes punched him & police arrested the man https://t.co/NiL7GiwJ9R
— Sara Murray (@SaraMurray) June 3, 2016
https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/738577323201462273
The people who were attacked claimed the police failed to protect rally attendees. Now a court has ruled that they can move forward with a lawsuit against the city.
Kartikay Mehrotra reports at Bloomberg:
Trump Supporters Can Proceed With Lawsuit Over San Jose Violence
Supporters of Donald Trump attacked during a presidential campaign rally in 2016 won a ruling allowing them to proceed with a lawsuit against the city of San Jose, California, over claims that police failed to protect them from violence.
Protests in June 2016 in downtown San Jose quickly devolved into a bloody scene when demonstrators outside the rally venue attacked the president’s supporters, pelting them with eggs and water balloons before punching them and snatching their “Make America Great Again” caps and setting them ablaze.
A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Friday upheld a lower-court ruling rejecting the city’s claim of immunity to allegations that officers blocked Trump supporters from escaping an area where anti-Trump protesters became violent.
Melanie Woodrow of ABC 7 News has more:
Court sides with President Trump supporters in riot civil rights lawsuit
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with attorney Harmeet Dhillon’s clients in the San Jose anti-President Trump riot civil rights lawsuit filed in 2016.
The decision denies qualified immunity to the San Jose police officials who Dhillon says forced Trump supporters to walk into a riot.
The rally was held on June 2, 2016.
Juan Hernandez says he is a proud President Trump supporter but also says his support of then-candidate Trump cost him greatly in June of 2016.
Hernandez vividly remembers images as Trump supporters left a rally in San Jose. Hernandez says they found themselves in the thick of a riot. “It was really scary because the cops aren’t doing anything, they were just watching everything happen,” said Hernandez.
“They started coming to us and they attacked us, we weren’t inciting anything, we weren’t saying anything to them,” he continued.
Hernandez says he suffered a broken nose, bruising, concussion and scratches. “Someone needs to be held accountable for it,” said Hernandez.
You can read the court’s full opinion here.
If you have forgotten how bad this was, take a look at the video below:
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
I don’t think this is going anywhere because SCOTUS has ruled that police don’t have a duty to protect a person from harm.
There’s a difference between protecting a person from harm and purposely routing them into danger zones as has been the actions of several events. San Jose, Charlotte and a number of other events have occurred where positioning appeared to have been arranged in advance between police and antifa or BLM protesters.
Let us all remember, “Blue Lives Matter”….and just maybe if they’re feeling good the day you meet them, you won’t get stomped into the ground or shot.
Charlottesville, VA:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/04/charlottesville-report-tells-us-what-happens-when-police-fail-do-their-job-glenn-reynolds-column/917521001/
“Even if there was no explicit ‘stand down’ order in place, CPD and VSP both failed to ‘stand up’ to protect human life.” Areas where conflict could be expected to occur didn’t have police officers assigned to them; areas where police officers were stationed were out of the way.
When violence first broke out, according to two witnesses Chief Thomas reportedly said “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”
When the police finally decided to shut the rally down, they did it in a way that forced the protesters and counterprotesters into each other, instead of separating them, making violence far more likely. Meanwhile police who could have deescalated the violence stood aside.”
I don’t know about this one. The lack of duty to protect only falls to those people you are not directing. For instance, if I stop someone for drinking but then let them go for some reason, and they get in an accident it’s on me. At least in civil court.
I fail to see a big legal difference between that and deliberately making someone go somewhere any reasonable person and certainly any police officer would know to be dangerous. It would be like directing people to walk through a burning building.
Remember all the civil suits brought against Southern police and towns in the 1960’s for looking away when KKK and others harassed blacks and civil rights workers.
We should be thrilled to see that that they will actually allow Trump supporters redress in the courts. Finally.
If the cops marched the civil rights folks into a Klan meeting it would be the same. Notice then as now it is democrats.
Wearing masks and assaulting people the don’t like for 150years.
“…police don’t have a duty to protect a person from harm.”
Could this duty vary with the context?
Does it matter if I am at a bar in a rough neighborhood at 2 AM vs out in public in daylight exercising my right to peaceably demonstrate? In the second situation, the failure by the police could look like an attempt to limit my freedom of expression could it not? The police cannot cover every bar in a city but they were already at the demonstration were they not? Why? To keep the peace? The city does not want me on the jury.
You are correct that there is no general duty to protect, but that’s not the basis of the allegations here. In this case, it is alleged that the police took affirmative actions that caused the harm.
“police don’t have a duty to protect a person”
Doesn’t really jibe with the motto on their squad cars now does it?
To serve and protect, indeed.
I don’t think the SCOTUS decision applies in cases of immediate, clear law-breaking. While they don’t have an inherent duty to protect, they are specifically paid to stop law-breaking and to arrest the law-breakers, as well as “keep the peace” – all of which they failed to do in this case.
This was just one of a number of cities where the police, run by democrat party machines, either refused to protect conservative crowds or purposely routed them into bottlenecked attack corridors. They must be held accountable now, before the leftist attackers step it up to murder.
They have already attempted murder against members of Congress. I suspect that the ongoing legal immunity of the Left will have them deliberately killing people by the end of the year. Which will kind of make this blog less than relevant as it will be a matter of violent insurrection and counter-insurrection.
If Trump keeps winning there is a chance the left will start killing themselves!
In a rare instance I do not feel bad about the taxpayers or insurance companies who will pay. Hopefully voters smarten up and qualified immunity gets another big strike against it.
In a situation in which a city administration is elected by the voters and then acts this way, they deserve to be sued and the local taxpayers should pick up the cost. Taxpayers at all levels need to understand the impact of the decisions made by lawmakers and government, and nothing does this better than to pay for the results of such decisions.
Bear incidents like these in mind when things go further out of hand. The police will obey orders from their bosses, up to and including mass roundups and shoot-to-kill orders.
Possibly, though I don’t think it would be full fledged like that. there are places where the police work as they are supposed to, but in Leftist enclaves the police are nearly as leftist as the elected officials.
There were videos outside an ICE facility, and the police were defending the area, and making arrests, and containing the protestors who were breaking the laws.
With the way in which Obama painted the police as evil while pushing racial issues to anger, he just might have helped tip the bar some against the leftists in those left leaning precincts.
If you’re thinking of the incidents in Portland, IIRC the local police refused to do anything. They had to get federal police from DHS to come and protect the facility.
Eventually, Portland Police did clear out the camp, but they did *nothing* to help protect ICE agents and the facility, as far as I know.
The Portland mayor, Ted Wheeler, who also acts as the police commissioner, has openly and overtly stated that he agrees with the ICE occupiers.
The po po in Portland are now in active disagreement with the mayor and his policies. The real upside is that I get to smirk every time that “Chief Outlaw” is mentioned. Perfect fodder for a Chapelle sketch if you ask me.
You had me, annnnd then you lost me. Bear in mind no group of police officers will round you up then put a lead pill in your neck. Unless, you’re really a bear. Then yes, they will round you up and shoot if necessary, because you’re a bear.
Not a chance.
It will never be that blatant — but police officers will obey stand-down orders to do nothing while violent leftists and rioters do the damage. And they will carry out middle-of-the-night no-knock SWAT raids of GOP homes and offices. And they will carry out maliciously-conceived “safety” plans.
The real danger will be what happens when conservative groups start to take reasonable precautions to defend themselves from leftist violence…
“”The real danger will be what happens when conservative groups start to take reasonable precautions to defend themselves from leftist violence…””
I’ve been thinking along more or less the same lines. Eventually a bunch of ex-military/police are going to set up a little ambush for one of these mobs.
You’ve heard of Oathkeepers, no? It consists of former and active law enforcement and military and have a list of orders they will not obey.
Yeah, they were the ones who backed out of the rally at MW’s offices when the leftist mob showed up. I know their first instinct is to obey the law, but abandoning the field to the enemy doesn’t win many battles.
that’s Patriot Prayer marchers in Portlandia Oregon
While I would prefer those who actually committed the rioting, assaults, and various other crimes to be prosecuted this is a good viable alternative. Should San Jose lose this lawsuit it will be good motivation for them to have their police do their jobs at future big events as well as serve as a warning to other cities not to let this happen on their turf.
No, you don’t recognize the depth of liberalism in these “public servants”. They don’t care how much it costs or who pays for it as long as they can do their part in the opposition. They also have the mandate of the majority of voters in these liberal cities.
I am firmly convinced that discovery will reveal that if not the mayor members of the city council were in cahoots with the violent rioters.
Equally, I am firmly convinced that should it get that far the lawsuits against the city and UCB will reveal that the city and university were involved in the violence against attendees at events featuring conservative speakers.
There is a big difference between big city police and rural Sheriff’s. Most of the country by area is policed by Sheriffs.
Was at my gym and talked to this guy who was in government. I told him how terrible the mayor was because he blamed the assaults on Trump, This guy stated that he was the mayor and that the police stood by while those attending the Trump rally were assaulted because it wasn’t safe for the police.
“those attending the Trump rally were assaulted because it wasn’t safe for the police”
I thought we pay the police to take risks. If the police abandon the field because any risk to themselves is unacceptable, what good are they?
To police their own safety comes first. They say their first priority every morning is to come home safely at night. And that if you impose on them the duty to knowingly risk themselves you’ll have to pay a whole lot more, or you won’t find many people willing to take the job. Policing is not even one of the ten most dangerous occupations, but if you listen to police (e.g. at Blue Lives Matter you’d never know it. That’s why they approach every traffic stop as a potential deadly incident, because once in a long while the driver is armed and turns on them. And that’s why they’re trained that every time some idiot pulls an object on them that could be a gun, or just drops his hand where he could very easily have a gun hidden, they should shoot rather than take the risk.
To police their own safety comes first. They say their first priority every morning is to come home safely at night. And that if you impose on them the duty to knowingly risk themselves you’ll have to pay a whole lot more, or you won’t find many people willing to take the job. Policing is not even one of the ten most dangerous occupations, but if you listen to police (e.g. at Blue Lives Matter you’d never know it. That’s why they approach every traffic stop as a potential deadly incident, because once in a long while the driver is armed and turns on them. And that’s why they’re trained that every time some idiot pulls an object on them that could be a gun, or just drops his hand where he could very easily have a gun hidden, they should shoot rather than take the risk.
The key to remember is: if the police were so afraid they stepped back and let the riot happen, then THERE IS NO WAY ON THIS EARTH any halfway reasonable jury would convict you of shooting the rioters.
Your defense would merely be “Heck, the cops ran away because THEY were afraid of it, what do you think the average citizen feels like?!”
(Oh, and I would also sue the venue for refusing to let me exercise my right to self-defense. Though, being CA, that right has already been infringed.)
Really the only language these liberal scum understand is the language of money. Make them pay for their actions!
They understand violence. As of yet, they are the only ones who have used it. As of yet.
I see that people here have a lot of faith in the efficacy of lawsuits – not surprisingly, because it’s a legal blog. Personally, I don’t think they’ll go anywhere, or have any significant effect at all. The only way to stop the mobs is to beat the crap out of them.
Either that or lift the immunity that the mayor and police chief have and let them be sued individually and against their own – not public – assets.
#ProudBoys
This is why they don’t want us to have guns.
Different cities have different reputations with respect to violence and police behavior. The two are connected, along with decisions by the mayor or city council. As a result, the same cities continue to have violent incidents, while other cities do not.
In San Diego, for example, the Trump rallies were peaceable, even though the provocateurs that followed the rallies in the pay of the Democratic party were there, as they were in San Jose.
My son attended one of the Trump rallies in San Diego. Much later, he told me that he had seen a man gather up rally materials, set it on fire, and start throwing it at people. The police reacted with alacrity. Later, he saw the incident online, being touted as an example of “police brutality.” The video showed only the police action, and not what provoked it. That incident opened his eyes. He supported Bernie Sanders, and when Sanders lost the nomination, he eventually selected Trump, in part because he learned to disbelieve most of what the Democrats had to say about him.
I was at the Trump rally. I hired a former Green Beret for security, as I also took my son with me. One thing I vividly remembers is everyone thanking the SDPD for being there and obviously geared toward public protection. The officers had arranged entry/exits so the protesters and supporters were as far apart as physically possible.
I am so glad I took my boy to see Trump that day. It was a wonderful rally, and he got to be part of history. I am grateful to the SDPD for making that possible.
“In San Diego, for example, the Trump rallies were peaceable, even though the provocateurs that followed the rallies in the pay of the Democratic party were there, as they were in San Jose”
I don’t know if this made a difference in the behavior of the provocateurs, but none of the Bay Area counties issue concealed-carry permits to unconnected people. San Diego will issue them but not freely. More importantly, neighboring Orange and Riverside counties will issue them to any law-abiding citizen who asks. You’re at a lot greater risk of being shot for physical aggression at a Trump rally in San Diego than San Jose.
I re-watched the video and the men are a bunch of panty waists. Men need to protect women and they did not. The guy sticking his camera in her face should have been kicked in the balls.
Where have the real men gone? I would not have allowed it no matter who was on what side even if it meant I got charged.
Same crap when men treat women trashy. I don’t care how bad she really is, I was always taught to treat them with respect. Old fashion, oh well.
I was there at the SJ rally. It was a deliberate set up to cause a confrontation.
To get to the rally we had to pass a group of demonstrators on the side street where the rally venue entrance was. It was peaceable enough, with lots of Mexican Flags and La Raza signs. When rally goers came out however, the side street had been blocked off and there were two lines of officers almost shoulder to shoulder on either side of the street,
leading from the exit, acros the side street, up the block to the next side street. From there the police directed everyone “Left!”, towards the main street of San Carlos. San Carlos is where the police had moved the demonstrators during the rally. San Carlos is also the street where all the parking gargares were located. The demonstrators were between the rally attendees and their cars. So, by refusing to allow people to go right and around the block to access their cars, rally attendees were forced onto the street where the demonstrators were.
Aack my finger slipped and hit “submit” while I was proofreading! Apologies for submitting a “draft” – I do know how to spell, and write.
Sheesh.