The president of the Greater New York chapter of Black Lives Matter will sue the NYPD because he says that cops “almost killed him” during an arrest at a peaceful anti-Trump protest earlier this year.
Walter Newsome told the New York Daily News that he was at a February demonstration against President Trump’s immigration ban when he was violently arrested.
Although the charges of resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and disorderly conduct against Newsome were dismissed, he says that the lawsuit is about accountability and a way to show that protesters have rights.
“I am bringing this lawsuit to demonstrate, when one is wronged in our society — even by police — that we have the right to damages for what happened to us,” he said.
He added: “I could’ve been killed as a result of the reckless way that they slammed me on ice and concrete…Thank God that I’m not a hashtag and that people are not marching in remembrance of me.”
He is expected to file his lawsuit against the city next week in Manhattan Supreme Court, according to his lawyer Sanford Rubenstein.