Black Lives Matter v. Town of Clarkstown

354 F. Supp. 3d 313
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Illinois
DecidedNovember 14, 2018
DocketNo. 17-cv-6592 (NSR)
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 354 F. Supp. 3d 313 (Black Lives Matter v. Town of Clarkstown) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Black Lives Matter v. Town of Clarkstown, 354 F. Supp. 3d 313 (S.D. Ill. 2018).

Opinion

NELSON S. ROMAN, United States District Judge

Plaintiffs Black Lives Matter, Jerlyne Calixte, Vanessa Green, Dominique McGregor, Weldon McWilliams IV, and Everett Newton bring this action against Defendants Town of Clarkstown, Michael Sullivan individually and in his official capacity, and Stephen Cole-Hatchard individually and in his official capacity in the Amended Complaint ("Amended Complaint," ECF No. 28). Plaintiffs claim that *318they are entitled to relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Defendants' violations of the First and the Fourteenth Amendments.1 Defendants each move to dismiss Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) (ECF Nos. 40, 43, & 48). The Court will address the motions together in this Opinion.

For the following reasons, Defendants' motions are GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

BACKGROUND

The following facts are derived from the Amended Complaint or matters of which the Court may take judicial notice and are accepted as true for the purposes of this motion.

On or about April 17, 2013, County of Rockland and Defendant Clarkstown entered into an inter-municipal agreement to form the Rockland County Intelligence Led Policing and Prosecution Center ("SIU") to "monitor, collect and share data regarding criminal activity as authorized by the Omnibus Crime Act, 28 CFR Part 23 et seq. and the Constitutions of the United States and the State of New York."2 (Compl. ¶ 18.) Starting as early as January 2015, with the knowledge and consent of Defendant Sullivan as the Chief of Police and Defendant Cole-Hatchard as the SIU director, the SIU "engaged in unlawful surveillance of African American groups, the Rockland County Sheriff, a Clarkstown Town Judge, and citizens of the County of Rockland, solely based upon these individuals' race, social and/or political positions." (Id. ¶¶ 21, 23, & 26.) One of the groups subjected to surveillance was the Rockland County branch of Black Lives Matter.

In connection with this surveillance, as early as January 1, 2015, SIU and the Rockland County District Attorney's Office issued monthly reports on the number of electronic investigations established, the groups targeted for surveillance, and the number of alerts received and reviewed. (Id. ¶¶ 27, 29.) According to the November 2015 Report, the "Black Lives Matter Movement" was one of the groups subjected to electronic surveillance which included, but was not limited to, searching public social media information and categories such as gangs, violence, terrorism, heroine initiative, and police riots.3 (Id. ¶ 30.) The *319November 2015 Report also indicated that SIU conducted electronic surveillance on two Black Lives Matter Movement members and found no criminal misconduct or threat of criminal conduct from Black Lives Matter or those two individuals. (Id. ¶ 31.) The report does not "reflect any justifiable basis to conduct such surveillance as mandated by 28 CFR Part 23.20(a) and (b)." (Id. ) The SIU's December 2015 report is similar to the November 2015 report except that it indicates that SIU used electronic surveillance on six members of the Black Lives Matter Movement. (Id. ¶ 33.) Once again, no criminal misconduct was found on the part of Plaintiff Black Lives Matter or any of the six members, and there was no legitimate basis for the surveillance. (Id. ) Within forty-five minutes of receiving the December 2015 report, the Rockland County District Attorney's Office emailed Defendant Cole-Hatchard, "I mentioned before, you really should not have Black Lives Matter listed as a target for surveillance." (Id. ¶ 35.)

On or about July 11, 2016, all of the named Plaintiffs participated in a peaceful rally at which Plaintiff McWilliams spoke. (Id. ¶ 36.) During this rally, all Plaintiffs observed snipers from the Clarkstown police department on a nearby roof. (Id. ¶ 36 - 38.) Plaintiff Green saw a red sniper rifle dot appear on Plaintiff McWilliams during the speech. (Id. ¶ 36.) This incident "resulted in the chilling of [Plaintiffs'] first amendment exercise of free speech." (Id. ¶ 38.)

Following this incident, at least one Clarkstown employee identified the Clarkstown police department's actions as illegal and stated that Plaintiffs were the victims of this illegal conduct. Town of Clarkstown Supervisor George Hoehmann wrote an August 26, 2016 letter to the United States Attorney's Office "[w]ith the unanimous support of the [Clarkstown] Board ... to report evidence of what appears to be illegal profiling by the Clarkstown Police Department." (Id. ¶ 39.) Mr. Hoehmann's letter goes on: "The foregoing evidence ... reflects that despite being admonished to the contrary, Sgt. Cole-Hatchard and the Clarkstown SIU were conducting illegal electronic surveillance on members of the Black Lives Matter Movement without any justifiable legal basis in violation of Federal Law." (Id. )

According to Plaintiffs, SIU's illegal surveillance of Plaintiffs was part of Defendant Clarkstown's custom and practice of conducting illegal surveillance of groups and individuals based on race and political views in order to chill First Amendment speech.

Around July 2015, SIU learned of the existence of "WE THE PEOPLE," an African American community group in Rockland County with no criminal records or history of violence, and that the group planned to sponsor a play called "A CLEAN SHOOT?" (Id. ¶ 41.) Advertisements for the play featured an image of a police car with a "white subject pointing a handgun out of the vehicle window." (Id. ) SIU conducted an electronic investigation on WE THE PEOPLE in early August 2015 and generated an intelligence report on the group and its members even though there was no evidence that any of the members of WE THE PEOPLE were engaged in or were reasonably suspected to engage in criminal activity. (Id. 44 - 46.) WE THE PEOPLE learned of the intelligence report on August 31, 2016, when it was contacted by NBC on Facebook. (Id. ¶ 49.) "SIU racial [sic] profiled and illegal [sic] surveilled 'WE THE PEOPLE' ... because 'WE THE PEOPLE' exercised its First Amendment right to express their views through sponsoring the play." (Id. ¶ 50.)

The Clarkstown Supervisor also fell victim to Defendant Clarkstown's custom of *320illegal surveillance. Mr. Hoehmann, Clarkstown Supervisor, ran in the November 2015 election on a platform for fiscal reform which would presumably have impacted the Clarkstown police budget. (Id. ¶ 52.) After Mr. Hoehmann won the election, SIU began conducting surveillance on his social media to gather information to use to oppose Mr.

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354 F. Supp. 3d 313, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/black-lives-matter-v-town-of-clarkstown-ilsd-2018.