Suit Accuses Cops Of Abusing Protester

A veteran political organizer has filed a lawsuit against the city, a state police officer, and two city police officers for allegedly violating his constitutional rights and causing serious physical and psychological injuries after he was pepper-sprayed, chased by a police dog, and thrown to the ground and arrested during an anti-Trump protest.

The protester, Norman Clement, filed the suit in U.S. District Court against state trooper Michael Beauton, New Haven police officers Eric Pesino and Mark Salvati, and the city of New Haven.

The suit charges the defendants with violating Clement’s U.S. constitutional rights, including his right to liberty and due process under the 14th Amendment, his protection from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, and his protection from unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

The suit also accuses the three officers of assault and battery in their alleged exercise of excessive force in their arrest of Clement, and accuses the city of ​“deliberate indifference” to Clement’s rights by allegedly failing to properly train, supervise, investigate, and discipline local police officers.

The suit seeks $1.5 million in compensatory damages, as well as punitive damages, costs and attorney fees, and trial by jury.

The mayor’s office and the city’s police department both declined to comment on the recently filed lawsuit, citing city policy not to comment on pending litigation against the city.

Clement and his attorney, Paul Garlinghouse, gathered with two supporters outside the federal courthouse on Church Street on Friday morning to announce the suit.

The new lawsuit stems from the fallout from a Feb. 4, 2017 anti-Trump protest in which over 100 local protesters marched downtown to demonstrate their opposition to the president’s promises to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border as well as to the president’s recently released executive orders that banned travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the U.S.

Clement, now 68, was one of the lead organizers of the protests. With a bullhorn in hand, Clement helped direct around 100 demonstrators as they temporarily blocked portions of Route 34, which is a state road that leads to Yale-New Haven Hospital.

After leaving the state road and turning back towards the Green, local police tackled and arrested 27-year-old protester Nathan Blair for allegedly failing to clear the roadway. The police charged him with one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.

After Blair’s arrest, the state police chased Clement, pepper-sprayed him several times, and set a police dog on him. That dog, named Nero, partner of State Trooper Beauton, who has a history of alleged violent misconduct, wound up biting three local police officers instead.

“Clement ran from law enforcement personnel through the crowd, knocking over several of his supporters, before being apprehended. Clement actively resisted arrest and was sprayed with capstun,” the state police report stated at the time. (Clement disputes the police report’s finding that he knocked over anyone as he was fleeing police pepper spray and dogs. He told the Independent that instead the police were likely responsible for knocking a woman over as they pursued him.)

Clement was arrested and charged with four misdemeanors and an infraction: incitement of a riot, interference with arrest, breach of peace, disorderly conduct and negligent use of the highway by a pedestrian.

After over a year of fighting in court all five of the charges leveled against him, the four misdemeanors were ultimately dropped by the state’s attorney and that Clement wound up pleading guilty to the one infraction of negligent use of the highway by a pedestrian. He said he had to complete five hours of community service for the infraction, but he did not have to pay any fines.

He said he did, however, have to pay a $5,000 bond to get out of jail the night he was arrested, that he had to do physical therapy for about five months after the police took him down during his arrest, and that he still feels twinges of pain in his shoulder that only started occurring after the arrest.

An ​“After-Action Review” by the state police found that Trooper Beauton followed all relevant state statutes and used reasonable levels of force despite the fact that his police dog, Nero, committed three accidental bites against local police officers, and despite the fact they he issued three uses of pepper spray, one of which was found to be accidental.

Clement said he has never been a plaintiff in a lawsuit before. He and Garlinghouse said they filed this suit because of what they see as local and state police targeting activists and organizers in the wake of Trump’s election.

“It’s not about the money,” he said. ​“It’s about saying to the city and the state, ​‘You cannot shut us down for opposing your policies.’”

The complaint alleges that the Pesino and Salvati violated Clement’s constitutional rights and subjected him to assault and battery when they allegedly used ​“excessive and wanton force” to arrest Clement by ​“foot sweeping him forcefully to the ground.”

The suit claims that Beauton also violated Clement’s constitutional rights and subjected him to assault and battery when he ​“improperly deployed pepper spray and mishandled his dog so as to cause injuries to the plaintiff.”

“The Plaintiff suffered pain, physical injury and emotional trauma as a result of the actions of the defendants,” the suit reads. It claims that the officers ​“should have known that it is a violation of state and federal law to abuse an unresisting person in the manner complained of above.”

Clement’s lawsuit also includes the City of New Haven as a defendant, claiming that the city bears liability for failing to protect Clement from allegedly unlawful abuse by local officers.

The suit claims that the city ​“had in place a policy or practice of failing to investigate police abuse complaints sufficiently and failing to take effective action against officers after abuse complaints were substantiated.”

“The policy or practice of the CITY OF NEW HAVEN of failure to respond appropriately to complaints of police abuse,” the suit continues, ​“amounted to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons situated similarly to the Plaintiff.”

The suit further accuses the city of maintaining a policy of failing to investigate allegations of police brutality, failing to discipline those officers found to have committed misconduct, and failing to properly supervise or train police officers who have histories of alleged on-the-job abuse.

“These men and women are not properly trained,” Garlinhouse said about the local and state police as he stood outside of the courthouse on Friday. ​“They’re not properly supervised, and they’re not properly disciplined.”

He said Clement’s lawsuit represents one step towards achieving some kind of accountability for officers allegedly abusing the rights of the people they patrol. Garlinghouse said he also plans on filing similar suits in the near future on behalf of Blair as well as behalf of Jerome Richardson, a young man who was recently tackled and arrested by city police during a dispute on the Green.