Louisiana police officer injured in Baton Rouge shooting sues Black Lives Matter News
Louisiana police officer injured in Baton Rouge shooting sues Black Lives Matter

[JURIST] A wounded officer in a Baton Rouge shooting [TIME report] last year filed a lawsuit [complaint] in the US District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana [official website] Friday alleging that Black Lives Matter [advocacy website] and five of its leaders were responsible for inciting violence that led to the attack. The complaint lists a long timeline of events across the country connected to the Black Lives Matter movement and alleges damages greater than $75,000. According to the complaint:

At least eleven (11) police have been shot dead and at least nine (9) more wounded by BLM protesters, activists, and/or supporters. The leaders of BLM and Defendants, 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.

Black Lives Matter leaders have denied [Reuters report] any accusations that their movement promotes violence against police officers.

This suit comes a year after the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations filed suit [JURIST report] against the Baton Rouge police department for violating the First Amendment rights of protesters who were peacefully protesting the police killing of Alton Sterling. The DOJ had announced that it intended to investigate [JURIST report] the police killing of Sterling before the suit was filed last year. The movement has led to other actions around the country recently as civil rights groups in June filed a suit against Chicago for racial discrimination by the police force, and the Arizona Governor in April signed a “Blue Lives Matter” law [JURIST reports] to make stricter penalties for assaulting police officers.