DeRay McKesson Sues Baton Rouge Police Over Protest Arrests
A prominent activist in the Black Lives Matter movement, DeRay McKesson, on Thursday sued the chief of the Baton Rouge police department and other officials over the arrests of nearly 200 demonstrators during peaceful protests about police killings.
In the federal civil rights lawsuit, which seeks class action status, McKesson and fellow protesters Kira Marrero and Gloria La Riva complained that police were unnecessarily aggressive in arresting them on July 9. The lawsuit covers arrests in the Louisiana capital between July 6 and July 11.
The East Baton Rouge Parish Attorney’s Office said they had no immediate comment on the lawsuit.
The activists were protesting the July 5 shooting of a black man, Alton Sterling, outside a convenience store, one of a string of high-profile police killings of black people by white officers over the past two years that were caught on video and reopened debate about race and discrimination in the United States.
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