San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu is asking a federal judge to dismiss lawsuits against the Police Department over the 2023 Dolores Hill skateboard event where hundreds of young people were arrested and held in what some say was a violation of the departments own policies.
In the court papers, Chiu’s office is seeking to use a Police Department press release as evidence that the kids (most under 18) were at fault, although the facts in the press release are very much in dispute.
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From the plaintiffs response to the motion:
This case concerns an unprecedented mass arrest of children and youth by the San Francisco Police on July 8, 2023, when police herded, trapped and kettled approximately 81 minors and 32 mostly teenage young adults between police lines, and detained them all outdoors on the street for hours as darkness fell and the temperature dropped. The abusive detention, in which children had no access to bathrooms, water or food for up to seven hours, was apparently for the sole purpose of collecting thumbprints and other identifying information in the hope of matching the arrestees up with property damage by unknown individuals that had occurred at a different time and location. This police dragnet was unconstitutional, and targeted primarily Latinx, Black and other BIPOC youth, who are disproportionately subject to arrest and criminalization. Defendants’ brief is replete with attempts to go outside the bounds of the complaint to interject their own view of the facts and cast the plaintiffs and entire putative class as out of control rioters.