OMG: A police officer sued a Black Lives Matter protester for violence he didn’t commit. What’s next has free-speech advocates worried. WaPo

Civil rights lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to intervene in a lawsuit that activists and legal scholars fear could have wide-reaching consequences for protest organizers in Washington and across the country.
A police officer, who was hit in the head by a rock thrown at a 2016 demonstration in Louisiana, sued prominent Black Lives Matter organizer DeRay Mckesson on the premise that Mckesson should have foreseen the possibility of violence at the protest and be held accountable for it. Mckesson didn’t throw the rock or tell anyone else to throw it.
The case initially was tossed by a federal judge, citing a Supreme Court decision widely interpreted as a shield for protesters sued for damages they didn’t directly cause. But a three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in August that a jury should be allowed to hear the case and issue a verdict on Mckesson’s alleged negligence.