Lawyers representing a 75-year-old protester who was pushed to the ground by New York State police during protests that erupted in the days after the death of George Floyd filed a widely-awaited case in federal court on Monday. filed, less than two weeks after criminal charges against the officers concerned were dropped.
In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, it is alleged that the city of Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown, Police Commissioner Byron C. Lockwood and Deputy Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia, longtime activist Martin Gugino ‘s rights violated by an ‘unconstitutional’ and ” draconian ‘evening curfew 20 hours’ selectively enforced against peaceful protesters.’
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It also accused Buffalo police officers Robert McCabe, Aaron Torgalski and John Losi of using ‘illegal and unnecessary violence’ against Gugino through City Hall. to the United States Constitution. ‘Gugino was knocked unconscious and laid on the pavement with’ blood spilling from his broken skull ‘, according to court documents.
The 55-page case is demanding economic, non-economic and criminal damages after a grand jury failed to charge McCabe and Torgalski on charges of assault. John Flynn, district attorney in Erie County, said he did not necessarily feel that camera-recorded quarrels rose to the level of an offense, but state law requires prosecutors to file such a complaint when the victim at least 65 and the alleged offenders are at least 10 years younger.
On June 4, 2020, the Buffalo Police Department deployed a 57-member militarized force called the “Emergency Response Team” to disperse three people, one of whom was sitting on the steps of City Hall.
The video, recorded by a local news crew, went viral during the climax of the George Floyd protests across the country, and the team points forward in formation to three people sitting and shouting at the tension of Buffalo City Hall : ‘Move forward March’.
Minutes after the evening clock at 20:00, Gugino got up from the stairs and walked to the officers, when the team in tactical equipment then shouted in the chorus: ‘Push him, push him’, according to the lawsuit. Losi pushed McCabe and Torgalski to Gugino.
According to the lawsuit, they forcibly pushed Gugino to the ground. He then stumbled and fell backwards. According to the lawsuit, members of the emergency response team walked at Gugino while he was lying unconscious on the ground.
BUFFALO POLICE OFFICERS saw the elderly practitioner decline.
“Gugino became the victim of police brutality at the moment he peacefully and constitutionally protested against police brutality,” one of his lawyers, Richard Weisbeck, said in a statement. “If the roles were reversed, and Gugino pushed a BPD officer who broke his skull, he would be charged immediately, and for good reason.”
Gugino was transported to Erie County Medical Center after suffering a concussion and breaking his skull. He was initially treated in the intensive care unit and released on June 30, four weeks later.
The case quoted a statement issued by the Buffalo Police Department immediately after the incident, alleging that someone ‘stumbled and fell’ outside City Hall. The mayor issued a statement in which he said that someone who was involved in a ‘physical quarrel’ had been ‘knocked down’.
McCabe and Torgalski were suspended without pay and arrested within days of the incident. They pleaded not guilty and were released without bail pending further developments.
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The Buffalo Police Benevolent Association has repeatedly argued that officers did nothing wrong but apply the curfew. All 57 members of the emergency response team resigned from their positions, which John Evans, president of the police union, said publicly “to support the two suspended officers, and in disgust at how the administration is handling the whole incident,” reads the lawsuit.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.