A police officer who was badly wounded in the ambush and execution of three Baton Rouge officers on July 17, 2016, filed a lawsuit against Black Lives Matter (BLM) and five of its leaders on Friday. The officer urges that BLM and its leaders “not only, incited the violence against police in retaliation for the death of black men shot by police, but also did nothing to dissuade the ongoing violence and injury to police.”
“In fact, they justified the violence as necessary to the movement and war,” he pleads.
The plaintiff officer is identified as “Officer John Doe Smith,” a “duly commissioned officer acting in the line of duty in East Baton Rouge Parrish.” The complaint filed in U.S. district court in the Middle District of Louisiana pleads that on July 17, 2016, he was working as a police officer “when he was shot by a person violently protesting against police, and which violence was caused or contributed to by the leaders of and by ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ a militant anti-police organization.”
The lawsuit was filed just as the nation remembered the five officers killed and wounded in Dallas on July 7 last year and grieved the execution murder of NYPD Officer Miosotis Familia. The 48-year-old mother of three was shot in the face this past week as she sat in her law enforcement vehicle.
The execution of five officers and the wounding of six others in Texas last July came just as a Black Lives Matter protest concluded. The Dallas shootings came just one day after Philando Castile of St. Paul, Minnesota, was shot by an officer and the aftermath was live streamed and narrated by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds. The video went viral.
Breitbart News reported on July 17, 2016, about the execution of the three Baton Rouge police officers, and the wounding of three others near the Baton Rouge Police Department headquarters on that Sunday morning. Breitbart Texas reported that the killer, Gavin Long of Kansas City, Missouri, was in Houston and Dallas right before his attack. As reported by Jerome Hudson for Breitbart News, “Long left behind a lengthy, twisted history of encouraging violence and anti-American sentiments on social media.” Long was very active on Twitter and Instagram. He also called the Dallas police sniper, Micah X. Johnson “one of us.”
The federal complaint charges that plaintiff “DERAY MCKESSON was a leader of the national unincorporated organization that is known as ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’ and other derivative and/or related organizations.” It continues that in 2016 McKesson and the other defendants, Johnetta “Nettie” Elzie, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Network, Inc., and #BlackLivesMatter:
planned the Summer of Chaos, Weekend of Rage, and used the internet and social media to organize, stage and orchestrate protests and to attend and/or lead multiple protests and violence that accompanied the protests including, among many others, those in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; McKinney, Texas; Dallas, Texas; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The Baton Rouge protests, in large part, took place outside the Baton Rouge Police Department located in front of the former Woman’s Hospital on Airline Highway. This place is the same area where this shooting took place.
“Black Lives Matter” lists its principal place of business in California and has been formed as a partnership, the federal lawsuit states. Black Lives Matter Network, Inc., is a Delaware Corporation. It further pleads that “Black Lives Matter” is a national unincorporated association which states on its website donation payment receipt:
#BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.
“Black Lives Matter and its related associations/organizations were created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, as well as, Deray McKesson and Johnetta Elsie, all of who are leaders.” The complaint says that Netta Elzie and DeRay McKesson were in Baton Rouge during the protests.
The general allegations in the federal pleading begin with “At least eleven (11) police have been shot dead and at least nine (9) more wounded by BLM protesters, activists, and/or supporters.”
The pleading chronicles unrest, rioting, property damage, and/or violence in Baltimore; Ferguson and other places in Missouri; McKinney, Texas; Manhattan and Harlem; Tennessee; Phoenix; Minnesota; Oregon; North Carolina; San Diego; Indiana; and other cities and states.
It cites as one example, that after Michael Brown was shot by an officer in Ferguson in 2014, “BLM started a mantra of holding their hands in the air and yelling ‘Hands up, Don’t shoot.’ Riots began the next day.” The U.S. Department of Justice released a report in March 2015 that found that “[Officer] Darren Wilson was not at fault and finding that Michael Brown did not have his hands in the air.” This and other actions detailed in the federal lawsuit, including after Alton Sterling was shot by a Baton Rouge Police Officer on July 5, 2016, was “seized upon to further incite its followers to take action against police.”
McKesson and Elzie “were in Baton Rouge for the purpose of demonstrating, protesting and rioting, as well as to incite others to violence against police and other law enforcement officers,” the plaintiff officer urges.
Officer John Doe Smith is described as “42 years old, with two (2) children” who “worked in law enforcement for over 18 years.” “He was shot in an ambush of Law Enforcement Officers on July 17, 2016, by an activist whose actions followed and mimicked those of another BLM activist who killed several officers in Dallas just days earlier.”
The officer has asked for damages, including medical and hospital bills, saying the “shot through his abdomen tore up his intestines.” He has had to endure 16 surgeries to his abdomen and must now wear a colostomy bag. He has a hole in his large intestine that leaks into the exit wound which in part is a cause for continuing infections. He has also undergone three surgeries after he was shot in the head on his left side and he will have to endure more. His left ear had to be sewn back on. The officer is permanently disabled.
Officer Smith has asked for damages for physical pain and suffering, physical injuries, emotional and mental distress, pain and suffering, humiliation, embarrassment, the loss of employment opportunities and future earning capacity and lost wages, and for all litigation expenses, and other damages.
Breitbart Texas reported in November that the father of one of the officers executed in Dallas in July 2016 at a Black Lives Matter protest filed a lawsuit against Black Lives Matter, Rev. Al Sharpton, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, George Soros, and others charging that they inflamed and inspired a “War on Police.” Tometi, Cullors, Garza, McKesson and Elzie are also named in that lawsuit. Breitbart News reported last August that Soros’ Open Society Institute approved $650,000 in 2015 to “invest in technical assistance and support for the groups at the core of the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter movement.”
Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2.
Officer John Doe Smith Lawsuit Against Black Lives Matter and BLM Leaders
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