Man arrested violently at June protest sues cops, city
A cyclist who insists he was an innocent bystander when police forcibly arrested him during a protest near Fiserv Forum in June has sued the city and several officers.
Cameron Murdoch’s lawsuit lists claims of excessive force, unlawful arrest, failure to intervene and false statements and says the city should cover the damages a jury might assess against officers involved, including former Police Chief Alfonso Morales.
In a statement, attorneys Drew DeVinney and Edgar Lin said that since filing a notice of claim June 25, they have not heard anything from the city to explain why police took the actions they did.
City Attorney Tearman Spencer did not return an email about the matter from a reporter.
“Our community should be allowed to decide how our police treat our citizens,” the statement reads. “Our community deserves justice, and Milwaukee deserves better.”
According to the complaint, filed last week in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, Murdoch, 28, had joined a protest march, on his bicycle, near City Hall. When it stalled near 6th Street and McKinley Boulevard, he stood astride his bike behind the main crowd that was beginning to engage with police.
Around 7:20 p.m., an order went to MPD officers to target “all bicyclists” near the protest for charges of disorderly conduct or blocking traffic.
“That, upon information and belief, the illegal order to arrest ‘all bicyclists’ was executed to extinguish a lawful protest,” the suit state.
About that same time, a group of bicycle officers northbound on 6th St. collided with each other near the intersection and one, Donald Kenzien, crashed to the ground. Murdoch’s suit alleges that officers of Bike Squad 3 falsely reported to superiors that a protester had knocked Kenzien off his bike.
The leader of the squad, Sgt. Joseph Zawikowski, was photographed by others at the scene taking Murdoch — who was trying to walk his bike away from the scene — forcibly to the ground, then punching and kneeling on his neck as other protesters pleaded to leave Murdoch alone.
Murdoch was handcuffed, taken away in a police wagon and spent the night in jail before being issued a citation for disorderly conduct and released.
He later got a second citation, for obstructing, which the lawsuit calls a conspiracy to create justification after the fact for Murdoch’s arrest, which generated its own protest by the observing demonstrators, and which was met with tear gas and rubber bullets
The impetus of the larger demonstration had been the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis nine days earlier, after a police officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
Several other officers saw Zawikowski, whom the suit says had no probable cause to arrest Murdoch, but took no actions to intervene.
The suit also accuses MPD of putting out “a concocted story” statement that described Cameron as the “main suspect” in an effort by protesters to block squad cars, defaming him.