First out, then in, now a lawsuit an injured Baton Rouge cop waged against a Black Lives Matter organizer is squarely back on the table.
A federal appeals court said Thursday that a lower court judge was wrong to throw out the lawsuit against DeRay Mckesson on First Amendment grounds, according to Louisiana’s largest daily newspaper, The Advocate.
The officer identified only as “John Doe” in court documents is arguing Mckesson was negligent in leading demonstrators to block a public highway and as a result, he was hit in the face by a piece of concrete or a rock-like object.
Mckesson was one of almost 200 demonstrators arrested July 10, 2016, as hundreds took to the streets to protest Alton Sterling‘s 2016 shooting death at the hands of a Baton Rouge police officer.
Sterling was gunned down after a cop accosted the unarmed Black man for selling homemade CDs outside a convenience store.
The incident sparked protests across the nation.
In the case against Mckesson, U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson originally dismissed the officer’s lawsuit in 2017, citing Mckesson’s First Amendment rights.
He also noted that Black Lives Matter is not “an entity of any sort,” and like the Civil Rights Movement or Tea Party, can’t be sued, according to CBS affiliate WAFB.
The lawsuit however, was reinstated in April of 2019 when the court ruled the officer could claim negligence.
And even after Mckesson asked the court to review the April decision, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday that Doe’s complaint shouldn’t have been dismissed on First Amendment grounds.
“We perceive no Constitutional issue with Mckesson being held liable for injuries caused by a combination of his own … conduct and the violent actions of another that were foreseeable as a result of that … conduct,” Judge E. Grady Jolly wrote for the court as it sent the case back to Judge Jackson.
