Louisiana
Almost all claims dismissed in alleged racial traffic stop
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed much of a lawsuit filed by two Black men who said they were subjected to a racially motivated and humiliating traffic stop last year by sheriff’s deputies in southeast Louisiana.
The judge’s Tuesday ruling kept alive a claim from one of the men that a St. Tammany Parish sheriff’s deputy engaged in an unlawful search during the traffic stop.
But U.S. District Judge Lance Africk dismissed multiple other claims the sheriff’s office and deputies. Those included claims that deputies held the men longer than necessary for a traffic violation, and that the deputies took retaliatory actions against the men.
Centering on a March 13, 2021, stop in Mandeville, the lawsuit says Bruce Washington, 53, of Bogalusa, was taking his cousin, Gregory Lane, 47, of Mandeville, to get a haircut when he stopped at a Mandeville gas station. It claims two deputies began monitoring their movements without cause and later pulled them over before being joined by a third deputy. The suit says one deputy claimed, incorrectly according to the lawsuit, that Washington had failed to use his turn signal.
The lawsuit says the two were questioned and patted down. Lane’s request to call his wife so she could call a lawyer was refused. Washington was told, after saying he knew his legal rights, that the traffic stop could “go a different way than it has to be,” which Washington perceived as a threat, the lawsuit said.
Africk refused to dismiss a part of the lawsuit that claims officers had no cause to frisk Washington during the traffic stop, keeping alive a claim that Washington was a victim of an illegal search.
But Africk dismissed multiple other claims. His ruling said the men had failed to make a case that they were held for an unconstitutionally long amount of time. Nor did they establish that deputies had violated their rights by ordering them out of the vehicle — or by refusing to let one of them return to the car for paperwork proving that an issue involving an outstanding traffic warrant had been legally resolved.
Lane and Washington are represented in the lawsuit by attorneys working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana’s Justice Lab initiative. The project recruits private lawyers and firms to aid in litigation targeting allegations of racially motivated police abuses.
Montana
Judge orders arrest of neo-Nazi website founder
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the arrest of a neo-Nazi website publisher accused of ignoring a $14 million judgment against him for orchestrating an anti-Semitic harassment campaign against a Montana woman’s family.
U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen issued a bench warrant for the arrest of Andrew Anglin, founder and operator of The Daily Stormer website.
Attorneys for Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh have said Anglin did not pay any portion of the August 2019 judgment and has ignored their requests for information about his whereabouts, his operation of the website and other assets.
Gersh says anonymous internet trolls bombarded her family with hateful and threatening messages after Anglin published their personal information, including a photo of her young son. In a string of posts, Anglin accused Gersh and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Montana, of engaging in an “extortion racket” against the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.
Gersh’s April 2017 lawsuit accused Anglin of invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of the Montana Anti-Intimidation Act. An attorney for Gersh did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment Wednesday.
Judge Christensen ordered Anglin to pay over $4 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages to Gersh, who is represented by lawyers from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center. The court entered the default judgment against Anglin after he failed to appear for a scheduled deposition by Gersh’s attorneys.
Anglin, a native of Ohio, has claimed to be living outside the U.S. But his current whereabouts are unknown and he did not immediately respond to an email sent to an address posted on his website.
Other targets of Anglin’s online harassment campaigns also secured default judgments against him after he failed to respond to their respective lawsuits.
In June 2019, a federal judge in Ohio awarded $4.1 million in damages to Muslim American radio host Dean Obeidallah, who sued Anglin for falsely accusing him of terrorism. Obeidallah said he received death threats after Anglin published an article that tricked readers into believing he took responsibility for the May 2017 terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert.
In August 2019, a federal judge in Washington entered another default judgment against Anglin and awarded just over $600,000 in compensatory and punitive damages to the first Black woman to serve as American University’s student government president. Taylor Dumpson’s lawsuit said Anglin directed his readers to “troll storm” her after someone hung bananas with hateful messages from nooses on the university’s campus a day after her inauguration as student government president.
Illinois
Man gets 182 years in shooting paralyzed boy
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) — A southern Illinois man has been sentenced to 182 years in prison for his role in a shooting outside a grocery store that wounded seven people, including a young boy who was left paralyzed.
A St. Clair County judge sentenced sentenced DeAngelo Higgs, 36, this week following his August conviction on seven counts each of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm, and other charges.
Higgs, of Madison, was one of three men charged in the September 2021 shooting outside a store in East St. Louis that wounded seven people, including Mason Mitchell, who was 3 years old at the time. The two other defendants have also been convicted in the shooting.
Mason’s mother, Marquisha Collins, had stopped at the East Side Meat Market after work to pick up dinner for her children when gunfire erupted and bullets struck her car.
Mason, who was seated in the back seat with his 8-year-old brother, was struck by at least one bullet, inflicting a spinal injury that left him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair, she said.
Marquisha Collins told the court during Monday’s sentencing that the shooting cost her her job and forced her family to find new housing that suits Mason’s special needs and also purchase a car that accommodates his wheelchair, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.
