A coalition of criminal justice activists and homeless advocates filed a lawsuit against the city over how Los Angeles police have handled protests following the death of George Floyd, accusing officers of shooting a homeless man in the eye with rubber bullets and holding people for upward of 12 hours for simple curfew violations.
The suit — filed late Friday by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Black Lives Matter and Los Angeles Community Action Network — accused the L.A. Police Department of violating many protesters’ right to assemble and using excessive force.
The complaint also provided new information about an image of a homeless man bleeding from the eye in downtown Los Angeles that had gone viral and been shared by many critical of the department over the last week.
Protests over the death of Floyd, who was killed while in Minneapolis police custody on May 25, have led to unrest that Los Angeles has not seen since the 1992 riots sparked by the acquittal of four LAPD officers in the beating Rodney King. While businesses were looted and buildings were damaged and burned in downtown, Van Nuys and the Fairfax District, activists said protests have been largely peaceful and police have focused most of their attention on arresting demonstrators instead of looters.
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