A man has filed a $500,000 lawsuit against the city of Seattle after he was pepper sprayed during a rally on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day last week.
According to KING 5, Jesse Hagopian, an activist and teacher at Seattle's Garfield High School, was hit with pepper spray after giving a speech. KING 5 adds that Hagopian said police were pepper spraying other protesters, but insists that he was accosted at random. He detailed the incident on Facebook:
I was marching for Martin Luther King day today--amazing march! At one point after the big main march, group of bike cops set up a line to keep us from marching. Some people walked through the line, but I didn't. When my phone rang, I turned away from the cops and began walking away to answer the phone. A cop then pepper sprayed me right in the face.
What's more, the incident prompted the NAACP to file a separate lawsuit against the city. Citing what he called the Seattle Police Department's "[L]ong history of violating civil rights," Hagopian's attorney, James Bible, informed the Guardian that he and his client "[Don't] anticipate that there [will] be an apology in this case."
[via KING 5]
