Man who had helped officer now suing city

Tim Harper says he went to the aid of a policeman, but he was latershot with rubber bullet by officers

San Jose and its Police Department now face a second federal civil rights lawsuit stemming from last summer’s protests, with the latest involving a man who helped carry an injured police officer to safety during the downtown demonstrations only to have officers later shoot him with a rubber bullet and allegedly threaten and intimidate him.

The second federal suit, filed on behalf of Tim Harper last month, centers on the chaotic response to demonstrators last summer protesting the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Both suits allege that San Jose police officers’ overly aggressive crowd-control tactics and use of rubber bullets, tear gas and other munitions to disperse unarmed and nonviolent civilians was a result, in part, of a failure in proper training.

Harper, who first filed a tort claim against the city in July, was standing by himself — away from any large crowds — and backing away from a line of officers when he was shot by a rubber bullet in the stomach by San Jose Officer Jared Yuen. He was not making any threatening motions or statements, according to the suit. Harper still has a knotted chunk of muscle on his abdomen wall that his physician told him will likely take more than a year to subside, according to the suit.

“No reasonable officer could reasonably interpret his behavior as threatening — let alone to a degree that justified any use of force against Plaintiff; this was an act of gratuitous violence,” the lawsuit states.

Harper’s injury occurred just hours after he assisted and brought to safety a wounded officer, who was punched in the face and thrown to the ground after taking a phone out of a protester’s hands and throwing it behind him, the suit states. Footage from news stations caught the event unfolding, including Harp

er’s effort to help the injured officer. The footage went viral and included a brief interview with Harper criticizing the department’s response to the protests.

Days later, Harper allegedly pulled his truck over in downtown San Jose to help a woman who had been hit by a car fleeing police officers. When officers responded to the scene, they noted that they had seen Harper on the news, warned him to “stay out of downtown” and detained him for an hour “with no apparent purpose except to

intimidate (Harper) into silence,” the suit states.

The named defendants in the lawsuit are the city of San Jose, former police Chief Eddie Garcia, special-operations Capt. Jason Dwyer, Sgt. Chris Sciba and Yuen. SJPD referred a request for comment to the city attorney’s office, citing the pending litigation. City Attorney Nora Frimann declined to comment on the same grounds.

Yuen, who was taken off street duty after videos of his profane and aggressive outbursts during the protests went viral, and Sciba, one of four active officers who was placed on leave following the surfacing of racist and anti-Muslim Facebook

posts by SJPD officers, are also subjects of another federal suit filed on behalf of seven people injured during last summer’s protests.

That first lawsuit, which was initially filed in July, was updated last month to allege that Yuen not only injured other protesters but shot rubber projectiles into an upper-story apartment building in San Jose, breaking a window and injuring a tenant who was inside and not taking any part in the demonstrations.

Three new defendants were also added to that amended suit — Sgt. Ronnie Lopez and Sgt. Lee Tassio, who were supposedly supervising Yuen at the time, and Officer Jonathan Marshall,

who allegedly also shot into neighboring apartments. According to the suit, Tassio directed Yuen to shoot the projectiles.

According to the second federal lawsuit, Yuen had not received any training on the use of less-lethal weapons like rubber bullets in at least the last five years.

Both lawsuits also single out Sciba for his role in preparing training materials for the use of less-lethal munitions. According to the lawsuits, his training materials included a cartoon featuring cavemen and a giant mammoth that “mocks shots to the groin,” includes “no mention of deescalation, and the final slide synthesizes the SJPD

message to trainees regarding use of ‘less-lethal’ weapons: ‘Do not hesitate. Always win.’ ”

The San Jose Police Department has since updated its duty manual to provisionally allow the use of rubber bullets in crowded situations like a protest but only “in situations where a person is actively attacking an officer or another person or when an armed agitator poses a threat to officers or other peaceful protesters.”

Harper is seeking unspecified monetary damages to cover medical bills, loss of work and emotional distress. His attorney, Robert Powell, did not return multiple requests for comment.