| PHILADELPHIA
- January 24 - The first lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia over
arrests during the Republican National Convention (RNC) was filed earlier
this week in federal court. Michael Graves, the owner of the warehouse
used to make puppets, signs, and banners, charges that he was wrongfully
arrested, detained and prosecuted, and his property was seized and
destroyed in violation of constitutional rights.
R2K Lawyers Paul Messing and David Rudovsky filed suit Monday in U.S.
District Court for unspecified damages on behalf of Michael Graves and his
wife, Susan Ciccantelli. The civil suit complaint outlines that the city
of Philadelphia subjected Graves to “false arrest, lengthy pre-arraignment
detention and malicious prosecution . . . to chill the exercise of
protected First Amendment activity and to detain suspected protesters for
the duration of the RNC.” Graves and Ciccantelli leased their West
Philadelphia space to activists in order to create messages of dissent to
be used during the RNC.
Philadelphia Mayor John Street, Police Commissioner John Timoney, and
Deputy Commissioner Robert Mitchell are all named as defendants in the
lawsuit. Graves claims that the city engaged in “preventive detention” to
hold protesters in jail for the duration of the Convention, violating their
First Amendment rights. In addition, Graves contends that the four-day
pre-arraignment detention and malicious prosecution were violations of his
Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Graves was originally arrested on August 1st, 2000 in the warehouse with
seventy-five others and charged with crimes of possessing instruments of
crime, recklessly endangering another person, obstructing justice,
conspiracy to obstruct justice, disorderly conduct and related offenses.
Nearly four months later, on November 29th, the District Attorney’s office
withdrew all charges against Graves.
Graves comments on his unlawful arrest and time in the holding facility
known as the “roundhouse” saying that “when they figured it out, they
should have let me go immediately instead of keeping me down there.
[Instead] I had to spend thousands of dollars and had to go through all
this aggravation, and they finally dropped the charges.”
The lawsuit also states that, “at no time did [Graves] commit any illegal
acts or engage in any conduct which justified the actions of the [city and
police].”
Of the over 300 cases already resolved, only thirteen cases have resulted
in convictions, highlighting the overreaction by the city of Philadelphia.
Although this is the first suit of its kind, the R2K Legal Collective
confirms that many more civil suits will be filed in the near future. A
suit filed by volunteer medics, claiming harassment by law enforcement, is
the only other civil suit so far arising out of last year’s Republican
Convention.
Contact R2K Legal for a copy of the Civil Suit Complaint
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