PROTESTERS

Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg and Lin LLP.

“Our firm dates back to 1971. We cannot recall a single episode in which the Philadelphia police used munitions like this in a peaceful protest,” Feinberg said.

Shahidah Mubarak-Hadi, a plaintiff, said her 3- and 6-year old children were hurt after police fired tear gas at their home in West Philadelphia, where they were inside seeking refuge during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Officers violated the sanctity of our home, without forethought, senselessly firing tear gas around our residence while we were inside,” she said. “My children and I no longer feel safe in our own house.”

They live near the 52nd Street business corridor, the heart of a predominantly Black neighborhood rocked by clashes between police and protesters on May 31. The police response, lawyers said in a press release, violated their clients’ First Amendment right to free speech and assembly, Fourth Amendment ban on excessive force and 14th Amendment ban on racially discriminatory policing.

“In what many witnesses described as a war zone in an otherwise peaceful, residential community, police officers in tanks traveled away from West Philadelphia’s business corridor and down residential side streets for hours, chasing residents into their homes and indiscriminately firing canisters of tear gas at them,” they said.