A federal judge and jury on Friday found Houston liable for a long practice of violating people’s rights against unreasonable seizures.
In May of 2008 over 100 Houston police officers illegally raided the Pink Monkey--a LEGAL after hours club in the revitalized Houston downtown area. Police were caught on film tackling and slamming completely innocent people to the ground and then illegally detaining hundreds for up to two hours without any suspicion whatsoever.
The Pink Monkey was the culmination of 4 years of illegal raids involving thousands of mostly minorities at
about 30 legally open clubs around Houston.
Police were caught on video slamming and tackling people to the ground and holding them in handcuffs without any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing in violation of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.
Officer Reid Cashdollar was seen on video taking Donald Boyd--a stroke victim working at the Pink Monkey to afford medicine--to the ground.
“I wanted the City of Houston to stop arresting and injuring completely innocent people.” said college student Boyd.
“This is the largest example of complete disregard for people’s rights I have ever seen in Texas. It dwarfs the infamous Kmart Raid where hundreds were illegally detained and arrested by Houston police officers in 2002.” said his lawyer Randall Kallinen. The Kmart Raid resulted in over a million dollar loss to the City--over $600,000.00 to pay citizen claims and their lawyers alone.
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