Oakland official ordered to pay, too

Jury adds punitive damages to assault verdict

The jury that awarded former Black Panther leader Elaine Brown $3.8 million in damages last month for injuries she suffered in an assault by Oakland Councilwoman Desley Brooks added $550,000 in punitive damages Monday.

In its Dec. 22 verdict, the Alameda County Superior Court jury decided that Brooks had attacked Brown without justification at an Oakland restaurant in 2015 after an argument over a housing project that Brown was promoting. Brown, who is now 74, tumbled over a stack of chairs, landed on the back of her head and suffered bruises and a torn rotator cuff.

The first round of damages, for pain and suffering, would be paid by the city of Oakland because of the jury’s finding that Brooks was acting as a city employee. The punitive damages, awarded after a few hours of additional deliberations Monday, would be paid by Brooks herself, if the verdict is upheld on appeal.

“I feel grateful to the jury for understanding that this wasn’t an issue of two black women fighting in a bar,” Brown said Monday. “This was someone who was an elected official who abused her power.”

Her lawyer, Charles Bonner, had asked the jury for $1 million to $3 million in punitive damages but said Monday’s verdict still sent “a significant message for those who abuse political power.”

Brooks said the verdict was “disappointing but not unexpected.”

Brooks has been a council-

woman since 2002, representing District Six in East Oakland.

Brown joined the Black Panther Party in 1968, helped it to organize community breakfasts, wrote and recorded songs to promote its causes, and became its leader in 1974 after Huey Newton fled to Cuba to avoid murder charges. Brown, the only woman to lead the radical organization, stepped down in 1977 and later wrote that the movement had been maledominated.

Newton was tried for murder after he returned, but prosecutors dropped the case after two juries deadlocked. He was shot to death in 1989.

The clash between the women stemmed from Brown’s recent venture to build affordable housing for formerly incarcerated people in West Oakland. Brooks has opposed the project.

Brown testified that, during a confrontation at Everett & Jones Barbeque near Jack London Square in October 2015, the councilwoman told her the project was “of no benefit to black people,” and later, after an exchange of angry words, punched her in the chest with both fists and pushed her over a nearby stack of chairs.

In the first phase of the case last month, jurors found that the assault on the then-72-year-old Brown was an act of elder abuse. Brooks testified that Brown had poked her, but the jury found that Brooks had no reasonable fear of harm and that her conduct was “outrageous,” opening the door to an additional award of punitive damages.

Brown’s planned 79-unit housing project is at 7th and Campbell streets on land her nonprofit bought from the city with the help of funding from Alameda County, where Brown has worked as an adviser to Supervisor Keith Carson. She said Monday she hopes to break ground on the project in September.