Lawsuit against San Jose by Trump supporters to go forward
A federal judge has given the go-ahead to a lawsuit by Trump supporters against the city of San Jose for not protecting them from attacks by anti-Trump protesters during a Trump rally in June.
The city police essentially forced Trump supporters into the anti-Trump mob, and then stepped back and did nothing when that mob attacked them. You can see some of the videos of these attacks here.
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A federal judge has given the go-ahead to a lawsuit by Trump supporters against the city of San Jose for not protecting them from attacks by anti-Trump protesters during a Trump rally in June.
The city police essentially forced Trump supporters into the anti-Trump mob, and then stepped back and did nothing when that mob attacked them. You can see some of the videos of these attacks here.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Mr. Z., glad you followed up on this. I had forgotten about it all.
Not seeing any links to the actual Court opinion on this lawsuit— has anyone searched yet?
Without knowing more factoids– the bar to winning these type of suits, is pretty high. The first hurdle is getting permission to actually sue the local government and I’m happy this was achieved, finally. (You can only sue a unit of government, if they agree to allow you.)
This depends heavily as well, on whether this is strictly a civil suit.
Guess who pays any money-damages, if the suit is successful? — The local taxpayers.
As a general rule, the ruling elites enjoy a lot of immunity from being held personally responsible for their political actions.
The devil is in the pesky details.
Related because its as counter intuitive as a municipality choosing one kind of demonstrator over another:
I saw this headline on Huffington: Susan Rice: The White House falsehoods endanger national security.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/susan-rice-when-the-white-house-twists-the-truth-we-are-all-less-safe/2017/03/21/f7cdef86-0e45-11e7-9d5a-a83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.32f479646726
I was expecting to find an Onion somewhere on the page.
Susan Rice being chosen to write such an article, specifically about government created deception or misdirection / accusation is sooo counter intuitive that it must be some kind of high level psyops operation to further confuse the public? Susan Rice wrote that story.
After having unprofessionally but curiously followed American politics for a year now, as a foreigner across two of the American oceans, and having watched many lectures about American history and constitution and “debates” about current politics (not in any systematic way), I remain flabbergasted by the idea of suing the police. [brainpause] Either you’ve got a fantastic legal system, or you don’t understand how bad it is.
Suing the police because the did NOT do something!?
I’m laughing my pants off here, what’s going on?
“Sue the police” could be title material for some rapper.
(Btw, doesn’t “rapper” mean “raper”? How is that term allowed around in media at all? Don’t people love their children anymore?)
The city managers and the police did not do their jobs, they are not empowered to choose sides and punish the side they prefer less with what turned out to be violence. What is so hard to understand about that? This is classic abuse of power, apparently based in a political ideology.
The police can do as they please to your population? Their are never examples of abuse of power by some out of control politician or roided up police officer where you live? Really? I find that very hard to believe.
Cotour–
No big surprise lefty media employs leftists and lies continuously about everything.
–I do have a question for you– what is the most read newspaper, in NYC? Which one do “normal people” read?
Localfluff–
I applaud your efforts to understand how things work in the United States.
–In general, government employees and elected officials have wide ranging immunity from personal liability in carrying out their “official duties.”
-Without reading what the actual lawsuit alleges specifically happened, it’s difficult to get a sense if they would be successful.
-It is very difficult to “sue the Police” ( I would defer to Steve Earle about what the liability of City Police is or is not.)
-It’s almost impossible to “sue elected officials,” at any level, unless you can prove they were intentionally violating laws. The redress for “political questions of policy” is impeachment or the ballot box, and we do not “criminalize” questions of policy. (we aren’t “supposed to.”)
“Criminal-responsibility” is a whole different matter, and a specialty law area unto itself as far as “public officials” and their “performance of their duty under law.”
They cleared the first hurdle, which is being allowed to bring suit. That alone is a promising development; at that point the bar was moderately high. (Not a lawyer, but the standard is generally– are there questions of fact involved & does the prima fascia evidence support going to Trial, and is this something more than “policy” questions.)
Most attempts to sue public officials (and police) are weeded out at the first Step, for precisely the reason they are generally immune from civil/criminal responsibility for “political actions.”
My first response just based on what feedback I get and see locally would indicate:
The Daily News, The New York Post and then the New York Times. The Post and Daily News are always provided free at my local diner and the Times is available occasionally.
Both the Daily News and the Post are for the most part just filled with T & A sensationalism interspersed with the tragedy of the moment and the highly charged political positions that each takes (Daily news despises Trump, The Post supports him). The Times, well is the Times. I have no idea what their distribution numbers actually are. I live in a very middle class community about 52 / 48 (?) Dems over Republicans.
Cotour–
Thank you.
I haven’t had an opportunity to hunt down actual Filing’s related to this San Jose situation, but this brief paragraph is telling:
“In July, the first federal civil rights complaint was filed. Dhillon’s law firm has been battling motions from the city to dismiss the case since then. Some state civil rights claims were dismissed, but the lion’s share of the complaint — the federal civil rights claim — remains in the case, as does the claim for negligence against the city. A judge refused to throw those claims out in a decision Wednesday.”
I’m infinitely more hopeful. The lawyer bringing suit is doing this pro bono (free) and apparently knows the system.
–One of the best ways to sue government officials, is via State & Federal civil rights laws. It turns these type of laws back against the progressives.
cotour,
“The police can do as they please to your population? “
In Sweden the police never does anything. They get paid anyway (very low salaries, but more than nothing, only 5% of the police corps resigned last year). They are just a very small unarmed disorganized demoralized bureaucratic corps. Much weaker than many of the armed islamic states that applies sharia law against their occupied populations in 50+ areas of Sweden’s cities.
“Suing the police” is totally unimaginable, regardless of what they do or don’t do. As if we the people had any kind of right towards them. That’s completely ridiculous! The police and the imported anonymous criminals are the only ones carrying guns, so however could anyone “sue them”? Completely unheard of and couldn’t happen already for pure physical reasons.
Do Americans really vote on who to be sheriff in their county? Tell me that isn’t true!
No, No, Sheriffs in America are chosen by Greco Roman mud wrestling contests, where the winner gets a turkey and to be Sheriff for the term advertised. Its a long held tradition.
LocalFluff: Voting for sheriff: It depends on where in the U.S. you are. In the western states like Arizona, Americans routinely vote for their sheriff. In the east, not so much.
LocalFluff–
Our Police are controlled at the local level. Each political subdivision in a State generally has their own police. If the the population is too small, adjoining police departments will cooperate together to provide coverage, and the County seat will generally be responsible for County wide Police.
(My city has 8 officers, they also provide backup/coverage for a smaller town that has 2 officers.)
We do have Michigan State Police, but they have differing but overlapping jurisdictions. We do not have what you would recognize in Europe as “Federal Police” as such. (although that distinction is rapidly eroding.)
My Chief of Police is an elected position, as is the County Sheriff, and the adjacent cities & townships’ own Chief’s of Police.
-Get yourself a good Chief of Police and they get re-elected like clockwork. It’s an extremely accountable position.
Follow up:
This article points out again just how disconnected this Susan Rice and her compatriots appear to be.
https://heatst.com/politics/obama-administration-chiefs-show-total-lack-of-self-awareness-on-twitter/
I suppose that being so entirely intellectually dishonest makes it all very easy.
(Just waiting for Edward to check in on the whole Sheriff issue)
wayne & Cotour,
The highest-circulation NYC-based paper is actually the Wall Street Journal at a bit over 2.1 million subscribers. NYT is next at a bit less than 1.6 million. But both WSJ and NYT are national papers that just happen to be based in NYC. NYT’s hometown circulation is much less than 1.6 million and is concentrated mainly in Manhattan.
Among NYC papers with pretty much just a local readership, first is the Post with a circulation of 550,000, then the Daily News with 425,000 and Newsday with a bit less than 400,000. Newsday is mainly a Long Island paper. The Post and Daily News are big in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. Nobody in the Bronx knows how to read so the question is meaningless there. ;)
There’s also the Village Voice for the hipsters with a circulation of 250,000. But the Voice is also a national paper of sorts, though to a lesser degree than the WSJ and NYT.
wayne,
Based on what you said about the size of your hometown’s PD, I gotta ask, are you a Yupe? I was until I moved to L.A. Lots of little towns in the U.P. with vest-pocket PD’s.
“(Just waiting for Edward to check in on the whole Sheriff issue)”
Sure, why not.
In a county near me, a decade or two ago, the sheriff was running for reelection, and his opponent was a felon. The sheriff died, leaving only the felon as the sole living candidate on the ballot. The dead sheriff won the election.
It is good for We the People to have some amount of influence over our civil employees.
Meanwhile, I hope that police departments across the country learn the lesson that they are in place to protect everyone, not just those that they agree with. The latter case is corruption within the department and among the officers.
Dick–
Good stuff.
(I lament the disappearance of print newspapers. Mine went to 3 days a week a few years ago. I do receive the WSJ, 6 days a week, Editorial page blows. My tangential Theory on the NYT– elitist reporters, writing for their elitist friends.)
–Not in the Upper Peninsula, although it is a nice area to visit. Have friends that live near Christmas, Mi. Traverse City & Petoskey are about as far North as I venture these days.
I’m along the mid-southwest, Lake Michigan coastline. (County population is 170K.)
For the Western State folks– our Michigan Counties are roughly 36×36 miles square(ish). The entire Midwest has been surveyed & plotted, down to the square-mile, and the smallest political-subdivision in Michigan, is 1 square mile.
Dick, news paper distribution statistics a hobby of yours?
On the sheriff issue, I strongly suspect that Local was being somewhat humerus in his disbelief of how America actually operates.
Back in the mid 20th century, law and order as well as freedom of speech were upheld by the police, even when most people — the police included — disagreed with the message. It is this kind of attitude that people mean when they long for the days when law and order were cherished, rather than today when the popular music advocates for criminal activity.
The movie “The Blues Brothers” took a shot at the concept. If only they had known that disorderly scoffing at law, in order to deny freedom of speech, would eventually be used four decades later by the socialists against the law and order advocates, and the police would actively aid the socialists in the attack.
[*** Language Alert! ***]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsxwhRiiWtc#t=47 (2 minutes, Blues Brothers, NAZI scene)
@Edward:
Clearly, I do not support national socialists politically, but I have to criticize your selected movie scene, which is interesting, because it demonstrated (in stupid way) that even producers from” Blues Brothers” have to demonstrate their (leftist) political correctness to full extent. Was this your hidden objective by scene selection? It seems that production of this specific scene shall show (what is very bad) by the will of the movie producer that supporting specific interests of the White people as group is evil and is like as being a Nazi himself. That is bad, sad and truly racism.
Wayne said:
“…-It is very difficult to “sue the Police” ( I would defer to Steve Earle about what the liability of City Police is or is not.)
-It’s almost impossible to “sue elected officials,” at any level, unless you can prove they were intentionally violating laws. The redress for “political questions of policy” is impeachment or the ballot box, and we do not “criminalize” questions of policy. (we aren’t “supposed to.”)…”
Hi Wayne, didn’t see this until now. Generally, my understanding is the same as yours, that for any Government Official to be individually sued their would have to be evidence of either Malicious Intent or Depraved Indifference.
This case seems to involve allegations of both. And frankly I am surprised since my personal experience is that Police Officers across the country overwhelmingly support Trump and are generally Law and Order conservatives, even in the most liberal areas. (I am from the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts, and even here there are very few cops who are Lefties, most are like us here, disgusted by the hypocrisy and lack of regard for the Law and Law Enforcement we saw from Obama…)
Police Management on the other hand tends to be very political and biased (if not outright as corrupt as the politicians who have elevated them into their positions…). It would not surprise me to find that this event was due to orders from above and the lower ranking Officers were forced to go along with what their Supervisors wanted, and who probably in turn were getting their orders from the City Fathers.
Robert Zimmerman said:
“…Voting for sheriff: It depends on where in the U.S. you are. In the western states like Arizona, Americans routinely vote for their sheriff. In the east, not so much….”
Here in PRM (People’s Republic of Mass… ;-) we do have County Sheriffs, and they are elected, but unlike the South our Sheriffs and their Deputies only run the County Jails. They have no Law Enforcement powers.
We have Local Town and City Police Depts and the State Police (where I did my 30 years) which has Statewide jurisdiction with full Police powers, unlike some States where the State Police are only on the Highway and State Parks.
AFAIK the other New England States are generally run the same way.
Alex,
Selection of this particular scene was to illustrate that no matter how much police and the public may disagree with a disagreeable group, such as the leftist socialists in that scene, that group has certain inalienable rights (“certain as in the first definition: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/certain ). It may have been fun to cheer when the disagreeable group was denied those rights by the righteous heroes of the movie, but such denial is now being performed in real life denial of the same certain inalienable rights on the Berkely campus (e.g. Milo Yiannopoulos), on other campuses around the country (e.g. Ben Shapiro), and in public spaces around the country (e.g. San Jose).
It was also intended to show that at one time, in this country, the police protected our inalienable rights, no matter how much they disagreed with the people or person exercising their rights.
These days, at the very least, the San Jose police department has become politicized. This is unacceptable.
SJPD is not just politicized but seems actively treasonous. How many are in La Raza I wonder?