Henry K. Lee
Two independent journalists have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Oakland police, saying they were wrongfully detained and ticketed for minor infractions because of their critical reporting on the department.
In a suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Monday, Jacob Crawford and David Morse said the tickets they received were "in retaliation for their attempts to document police actions in connection with political demonstrations against police brutality."
The city has not responded in court to the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.
Crawford said, he was given a "groundless" citation on July 19, 2013, for jaywalking on the 500 block of 14th Street after he took photos of Oakland police monitoring demonstrators at a downtown rally who were protesting the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. He also asked for the officers' names, Crawford said.
Sgt. Darrin Downum told Officer Melissa Baddie to write Crawford the citation, said the suit filed by attorney Rachel Lederman. Crawford was handcuffed for several minutes, the suit said. The ticket was eventually dismissed in traffic court, the complaint said.
On Jan. 13, Crawford and Morse said, they were riding their bicycles home from a demonstration - which never materialized - that had been called to protest the acquittal of two Fullerton (Orange County) police officers in the beating death of a homeless man.
Oakland Officers Kristina Tikkanen and Joseph Fong, acting on orders from Officer William Bergeron, gave each of them a citation for "supposedly running a red light" at San Pablo Avenue and Thomas L. Berkley Way, the suit said. Those tickets were also dismissed.
"Neither plaintiff had violated the Vehicle Code or any other law, and there was no probable cause to detain or cite plaintiffs on either of these occasions," the suit said. "Rather, the citations were given pursuant to an Oakland police policy to selectively ticket demonstrators, journalists and 'copwatchers' in order to gather personal information and deter participation in demonstrations and documentation of police misconduct."
Crawford is a videographer who has produced videos dealing with Oakland police misconduct, and is employed by a law firm that represents plaintiffs in police misconduct litigation, the suit said.
Morse, a member of the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, or Indybay, received $162,500 in 2012 to settle a lawsuit in which he claimed that UC Berkeley police had wrongfully arrested him and seized photos he took during a protest at the on-campus residence of then-Chancellor Robert Birgeneau
