Activist sues city, alleging excessive force

A local activist and radio reporter has sued the Antioch Police Department for allegedly using excessive force against him while he tried stopping officers from doing the same to someone else during a 2021 protest.

Frank Sterling says Antioch officers tackled him and used a Taser on him at what the lawsuit describes as a small protest held by a half-dozen people against Tammany Brooks, Antioch's former police chief, during his public retirement party on Sept. 17, 2021.

The lawsuit names the city of Antioch and 2021 police officers Brandon Bushby, Steven Miller, Geoffrey Morris, Brian Rose, Richard Angelini and community service officer Nicholas Gaitan as defendants.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco is the latest blow against the Antioch

Police Department, which has been investigated by the FBI and the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office for more than a year for alleged civil rights violations.

At least 45 officers — 16 in management positions — have been identified as being part of text message chains including racist and homophobic language and threats of violence, including at least one against Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe.

At least two members of Congress have called for the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the department.

The department is also the subject of at least one other lawsuit involving six defendants, who say police unfairly targeted them with unnecessary force.

Sterling, who works for Berkeley public radio station KPFA, alleges in the lawsuit that six protesters were “confronted by an aggressive group of police supporters, who were seemingly hell-bent on initiating a fight.”

The lawsuit maintains that a fight broke out, but police only targeted the anti-police protester, not the person fighting who supported police. Sterling was filming, then intervened to stop what he says were two officers' use of excessive force on a detained, unarmed protester.

The lawsuit says the six officers named in the suit took Sterling to the ground “and twisted his legs in a manner that seemed solely intended to cause harm.”

Sterling said he was complying as police “repeatedly yelled at him to stop fighting as a pretense to continue their assault on him.”

The lawsuit says Sterling was being handcuffed on the ground when an officer “unnecessarily tased Mr. Sterling in the lower back and buttocks.”

The lawsuit says a charge against Sterling for allegedly resisting arrest was later dismissed.

An Antioch police spokesperson did not return a message requesting comment on the lawsuit.