January 6 Protestor Files $2 Million Lawsuit Against Police’s Use Of Excessive Force
Jose Nino
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A Minnesota woman who received a brutal beating at the hands of law enforcement in the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the United States Capitol has filed a $2 million civil suit for being hit in the head repeatedly and slammed into a concrete wall on January 6, 2021.
Victoria Charity White, 42-year-old woman from Rochester, Minnesota, claims that at least two Metropolitan Police Department officers illegally used “deadly force” by repeatedly hitting her head and face with steel riot batons and fists at around 4 p.m. on January 6, 2021.
The complaint was filed on March 27, 2024 by Washington lawyer Paul Kamenar. The lawsuit names MPD Commander Jason Bagshaw and MPD Officer Neil McAllister, and claims that other unnamed officers were involved in the beatings.
It segues that the police officers committed violations of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code § 1983. It is an amended version of a lawsuit White filed representing herself back in January.
“The defendants willfully and unlawfully seized plaintiff by means of objectively unreasonable, excessive, and indeed, deadly force that shocks the conscience, thereby unreasonably restraining and depriving plaintiff of her freedom and inflicting physical and mental harm and anguish,” the lawsuit stated, which was filed in US District Court in Washington.
“Because of the senseless and unlawful beating she received at the hands of the defendants and the other MPD officers, Ms. White suffered great physical, traumatic, and emotional harm that day and continues to suffer to this day, particularly the traumatic and harm,” stated Kamenar in the lawsuit.
In the lawsuit, Bagshaw, asserts: “Repeatedly struck an unarmed and defenseless White about her head, face, shoulders, and upper body with a metal baton and his fists.”
The lawsuit highlighted that Bagshaw is being sued in his professional and personal capacity.
McAllister “along with defendant Bagshaw and other police officers, physically assaulted the plaintiff,” the lawsuit added.
Similarly, McAllister is being sued in his professional and personal capacity.
Per the lawsuit, video evidence demonstrates McAllister “slamming Ms. White up against the concrete tunnel wall, whereupon, inexplicably, his bodycam is shut off for some 30 seconds.”
“It is the policy of the Metropolitan Police Department to not comment on pending litigation matters,” the department said to The Epoch Times in a March 28 email.
The lawsuit lists off a series of violent acts and the impact it had on White after she went down the Lower West Terrace tunnel.
“Bagshaw reaches over his fellow officers and violently strikes Ms. White in the head with his baton five times in seven seconds,” the lawsuit claims. “The first blow knocks her MAGA hat off her head.”
In another instance, “Bagshaw moves his way from behind his fellow officers towards Ms. White to get a better striking distance and begins another assault. He spears and pokes White with his baton about the head, neck, and face to inflict maximum pain. Ledge officer sprays mace on Ms. White,”per the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asserted White did not resist police and would be deemed at worst a “passive resister”, according to the MDP Use of Force Framework.
Victoria White was spun around by Metropolitan Police Department Officer Neil McAllister while a bystander screamed: “Please don’t beat her.”
Acceptable force in this case would generally involve “low-level physical tactics to gain control and cooperation,” with techniques that could deal with pain but would generally not dish out injury, the MPD policy alluded to in the lawsuit highlights.
Several videos show White taking quick hits, punches to the head, a baton hitting her head, and being pepper sprayed.
Bodycam video published in 2023 revealed additional information on the beating, which includes a bystander in the tunnel who begged law enforcement to stop hitting White.
At 4:09 p.m., the man yelled: “No, no, no, please! Please don’t beat her,” per the video footage. Two minutes afterwards, as police yelled at him to “move it, keep walking!” the man responded, “No! You’re going to kill her!”
Such January 6 incidents demonstrate how tyrannical the US has become in recent years. The ruling class felt threatened by this manifestation and did everything possible to suppress it.
Hopefully, White receives justice here because the police response to January was a low point in American history. From here on out, the DC regime will only grow more emboldened and reckless when it comes to violating our traditional liberties.
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