St. Louis prosecutor invokes ‘Ku Klux Klan Act’ in lawsuit

CHICAGO — St. Louis’ elected top prosecutor says the city, its police union and others violated a Civil Warera law by allegedly engaging in a racist conspiracy to force her from office and prevent her from reforming racist practices.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said the defendants violated the Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act. Gardner is black; the named defendants are white.

The act was signed by President Ulysses S. Grant in April 1871 to help enforce the 14th Amendment, which had been ratified three years earlier.

The act was one of a series of actions designed to eliminate violence and protect the rights of 4 million freed slaves.

Today, it is invoked frequently in lawsuits involving police brutality or voting act violations, said Jack Beermann a Boston University law professor. He said Gardner’s claim also is unusual because it involves a public official suing other public officials.

To win a case alleging a conspiracy, he said, the plaintiff must show that public officials were involved in a racially motivated conspiracy to deprive someone of their constitutional rights.

In St. Louis, Gardner’s lawsuit cited racist Facebook posts by St. Louis police officers, which led to the firing of two veteran officers. The suit also says the police union went “out of its way” to support white officers accused of violence and excessive force against blacks, including posting bond for an officer who was charged with murder. The union said it considered the lawsuit “frivolous and without merit.”