4 file suits over 2017 Berkeley melee

Four Bay Area residents — who say they were assaulted last year at a riot that prompted UC Berkeley police to cancel a talk by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos — have sued the University of California, UC Berkeley, two former UC employees, and the city of Berkeley over their injuries.

The suit, filed Thursday in federal court in Oakland, accuses UC and the city of failing to protect the plaintiffs, who say they were beaten and pepper-sprayed in the Feb. 1 melee. They are seeking unspecified damages.

Three of the plaintiffs, all from San Francisco, said they were assaulted when trying to attend the Yiannopoulous event on campus. The fourth, an Oakland man, was at an off-campus bar when he learned that the event was canceled, but then entered the fray and was injured, according to the complaint.

The riot began as masked agitators joined a peaceful protest against Yiannopoulos, then spilled onto city streets as UC police and other officers shut down the campus after several hours.

John Jennings, Katrina Redelsheimer and Trever Hatch of San Francisco and Donald Fletcher of Oakland accuse city and university officials of “agitating the mob by issuing feckless disbursal (sic) orders,” erecting barricades that blocked the plaintiffs’ escape, and conducting their duties with “deliberate indifference” to safety. The suit says the officials’ actions exposed the plaintiffs to “an angry mob of violent anarchists.”

UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof said the university had not seen the suit and could not comment. A spokesman for Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin did not respond to a request for comment Monday, a federal holiday.

According to the suit, half a dozen masked rioters attacked Jennings and Redelsheimer in Sproul Plaza with sticks and pepper spray, leaving them with concussions, broken or bruised ribs, cuts, and burns. The suit accuses two then-employees of UC Berkeley and UC Davis of participating in the beatings.

The former employees could not be reached for comment Monday.

The suit says Hatch suffered a bruised back, welts and burns after being attacked in Sproul Plaza by demonstrators who knocked off his red “Make America Great Again” cap and aimed pepper spray into his eyes.

Fletcher spent the night at Highland Hospital and suffers psychologically after being beaten unconscious and kicked to the ground on Bancroft Avenue, the suit says.