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Legal Features

The Rutherford Institute’s complaint in Tucker v. City of Shreveport

The Rutherford Institute has filed a Fourth Amendment lawsuit on behalf of a young African-American man who, after being stopped by Louisiana police for a broken taillight, was allegedly thrown to the ground, beaten, arrested and hospitalized for severe injuries to his face and arm, all for allegedly “resisting arrest” by driving to a safe, well-lit area before stopping. In coming to the defense of Gregory Tucker, Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that the City of Shreveport and four of its police officers violated Tucker’s constitutional rights when they allegedly retaliated against him by using grossly excessive force in connection with what should have been a routine traffic stop.

Affiliate attorney Gregory J. Chiartano assisted The Rutherford Institute with the lawsuit in Gregory V. Tucker v. City of Shreveport, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The Rutherford Institute’s complaint in Tucker v. City of Shreveport is available at www.rutherford.org.

“What this case makes clear is how easy it is for Americans to be charged with any of the growing number of contempt of cop charges (ranging from resisting arrest and interference to disorderly conduct, obstruction, and failure to obey a police order) that get trotted out anytime a citizen exhibits anything short of total compliance to the police state,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Unfortunately, the price of standing up for one’s constitutional rights—or even attempting to protect oneself against police misconduct—grows more costly by the day, with Americans getting probed, poked, pinched, tasered, tackled, searched, seized, stripped, manhandled, arrested, shot, or killed. This case is a chilling reminder that in the American police state, ‘we the people’ are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to ‘serve and protect.’”

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