Highland Park woman sues police over protest
A Pittsburgh woman who says city police abused her during June 1 protests in East Liberty over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has sued the city and six police officers on civil rights grounds.
Kimberly Latta, 60, of Highland Park, said in the federal complaint that she was peacefully protesting when officers used a chemical spray on her as she sat on the ground, then picked her up, threw her down and handcuffed her without cause.
Ms. Latta said police charged her with failure to disperse and other offenses, but the case was eventually thrown out.
“Latta was physically assaulted and subjected to a noxious gas/chemical agent by defendants,” the complaint says. “The criminal charges brought against Latta were baseless, without probable cause and were dismissed at the preliminary hearing stage.”
Ms. Latta and her lawyer also allege that police refused to withdraw the charges, as they did with charges against other protesters arrested that night,
to retaliate against her for “going public” with her complaints in a June 15 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story.
The defendants are Officers Paul Abel, Thomas Gault and four John Does along with the city of Pittsburgh.
Ms. Latta said in her complaint and in the news story that she had been at home that evening watching law enforcement crack down on protesters near Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. In that incident, authorities used tear gas to force protesters back so President Donald Trump could walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church.
She said she was so angry by Mr. Trump’s “malicious use” of officers using tear gas that she decided to go out and protest locally.
“I was just so appalled by that I couldn’t sit still,” she told the Post-Gazette.
She rode her bike to East Liberty, where she said she was confronted by police in riot gear near the intersection of Centre and Highland avenues. She said she tried to turn right onto Centre, but police blocked her way, and a female officer shoved her with a shield.
She retreated back to the intersection and joined other protesters. She sat on the sidewalk as a “militarystyle phalanx” of police began marching toward her and the others.
“It was so terrifying,” she told the newspaper. “One of the protesters grabbed my arms before the police got me and tried to pull me away. I wasn’t going. I wanted to make a statement. I’m sitting here in a nonviolent, nonresistant way. [Police] grabbed me by the arms, and they threw me into the street.”
In her complaint, she said the police moved toward the protesters “like a wall of giants with plastic shields and strange orange shotguns.”
She said a police vehicle moved through the crowd, and an unidentified officer deployed some kind of chemical agent. She said police then surrounded her, picked her up, threw her down and handcuffed her.
Ms. Latta said she lost control of her bodily functions because of the trauma. Eventually, she said, she was allowed to go home after officers said she would be charged by summons.
In the Post-Gazette account, Ms. Latta said a police supervisor told her that other officers had been injured in a protest on Negley Avenue.
“I said I am strongly opposed to violence, and I’m sorry to hear that,” she told the newspaper. “Violence doesn’t help our cause.”
At home, she said, she wept over the incident and cried herself to sleep.
Police did not file a complaint against her until June 26, the complaint said, after her account had appeared in the Post-Gazette. On June 18, authorities had withdrawn charges against 22 other protesters, but Ms. Latta was not one of them.
The charges were later dismissed at a hearing on Aug. 5.
The suit is seeking damages for excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution and other counts. The city is being sued on grounds of failure to train and supervise police.