Mehta v. Village of Bolingbrook

196 F. Supp. 3d 855, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96773, 2016 WL 3976999
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedJuly 25, 2016
DocketCase No. 12 C 6216
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 196 F. Supp. 3d 855 (Mehta v. Village of Bolingbrook) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mehta v. Village of Bolingbrook, 196 F. Supp. 3d 855, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96773, 2016 WL 3976999 (N.D. Ill. 2016).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

MATTHEW F. KENNELLY, District Judge

Kirti Mehta and his children, Keval, April, Kishan, and Ketan — who, for ease of understanding, the Court will refer to by their first names — have sued the Village of Bolingbrook along with several members of the Bolingbrook Police Department. The Mehtas allege that the Village and Boling-brook police systematically discriminated against them on the basis of religion and national origin, depriving them of the equal protection of the law guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment (count 1) and interfering with their property rights under the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. § 3617 (count 2), and the Constitution (count 3).

Defendants have moved for summary judgment on all of the Mehtas’ claims. For the reasons stated below, the Court denies defendants’ motion.

Background

The following facts are undisputed except where otherwise noted. Kirti Mehta and his four children, Keval, April, Kishan, and Ketan, are Hindu Asian-Americans of Indian descent. Kirti has continuously resided in the Beaconridge development of the Village of Bolingbrook since 1996, and his children have lived with him at various times over the last twenty years. Kirti’s son Kishan and daughter April lived with their father in Bolingbrook until 2014. Kir-ti’s son Keval lived in Bolingbrook with his father until at least 2013 and testified in May 2014 that he currently lived there. Kirti’s son Ketan did not live in Boling-brook between 2009 and 2014, but he has lived there since 2014 and testified to having lived there for many years before 2009.

Until at least December 2010, the Meh-tas who were residing in Bolingbrook lived in a house at 406 Yorkshire Square. When the Mehtas’ home was foreclosed upon that month, they moved two doors down to 409 Yorkshire Square. The parties dispute whether all of the Mehtas ever lived at 406 Yorkshire and whether the Mehtas fully abandoned that property after the foreclosure. Although defendants contend Ketan never lived at 406 Yorkshire, Ketan testified to having lived there from 1995 [859]*859through 2009, when he moved to Lisle, Illinois. Defendants also contend that the Mehtas vacated 405 Yorkshire at the time of foreclosure, but Keval testified that he was living in both residences in May 2011.

According to the Mehtas, the Boling-brook police began routinely harassing them almost as soon as they moved into the Village. Kirti testified that he believed the Village began working to force the family out of Beaconridge in 1996. Kishan, Keval, and April also testified that they believed the Village had long been plotting to get their family to move from Boling-brook. Keval testified that as early as December 2001, Bolingbrook police officers routinely stopped him without cause and referred to him by derogatory ethnic slurs like “sand nigger” and “sand cricket.” He also testified that Tom Ross, then an officer with the Bolingbrook Police Department, referred to him as a “sand cricket” and asked him when he was going to leave Bolingbrook.

Kishan, Ketan, and April also testified that members of the Bolingbrook Police Department harassed them on numerous occasions over the years. Kishan testified that in 2009, a Bolingbrook police officer twice stopped him without cause, interrogated him, called him a “sand nigger,” threatened to arrest him without cause, and asked him when he was leaving Bol-ingbrook, telling him “we don’t want you here.” On other occasions (specific details of which he could not remember), Kishan testified that other officers offensively referred to him as “Hindu,” “sand nigger,” and “dot head,” and Kishan stated that officer Vince Radaker asked him on numerous occasions when he was going to leave Bolingbrook. Ketan testified that Ra-daker called him “sand nigger” and “haji” in 2006. April testified that police stopped her without cause twice in 2009. The first time, said April, the officer explained that she was searching the car in which April was a passenger because “Hindus are all hippies and we know all hippies have drugs.” The second time, two officers allegedly stopped her and Ketan outside a retail store and referred to them as “Hindus” and “dot heads.” April also testified that groups of police routinely harassed and searched her when she worked at a bar in Beaconridge, and that on at least one occasion she heard officers refer to her as a “Hindu bitch.”

Shortly after midnight on August 19, 2010, during a gathering at the Mehtas’ residence at 405 Yorkshire, a man approached the property and fired multiple gunshots in the direction of tfie residence. Numerous people were standing in front of the Mehtas’ home at the time of the shooting, including Keval and Kishan. Kirti was inside and did not witness the shooting, and although Keval was outside, he did not see the shooter. Kishan saw the shooter, who was wearing a bandana mask that covered the bottom half of his face. Kishan also testified that he observed the shooter to have black hair and tan skin.

Thomas McAuliffe and at least four other Bolingbrook police officers, including a K-9 officer, arrived at the scene a short time later. When they arrived,- they ordered those present to the ground, restraining and searching them to determine whether any of them had a firearm. Kish-an testified that the five officers dispatched to the Mehta residence lined everyone up, searched them, and questioned them. According to Kishan, the officers yelled at everyone, accused them of lying to the police, insinuated that they perpetrated the crime, and demanded to see the firearms they likely used to fire back at their alleged assailant. Kishan also testified that when he spit to clear his sinuses at one point during the officers’ questioning, a K-9 officer said, “You spit again, I’m going to arrest you for assault on an offi[860]*860cer with bodily fluids and I’ll have my dog attack you.” Pis.’ Ex. 7, dkt. no. 239-7, at 8 (34:8-10). Defendants deny that this occurred.

The investigation that ensued was, in the Mehtas’ eyes, wholly inadequate. The parties dispute whether the Bolingbrook police department included the incident in a “notables” e-mail to apprise officers starting a new shift that an event of importance occurred during the previous shift. Ross testified that such an e-mail was sent, but it was never produced for plaintiffs despite discovery requests, and defendants now contend the e-mail does not exist. Kishan testified that he gave officers a description of the person who attacked the house and later told them his friends had heard that a person nicknamed “Ghost” had been boasting about the shooting. Still, plaintiffs say, police did not interview other eyewitnesses. Although, according to plaintiffs, the police settled on a suspect, they never questioned that suspect and never conducted a lineup so that the people who had been outside the Mehtas’ house on the night of the shooting could attempt to identify the culprit. Officers did, however, compare the bullets fired with a gun used in another shooting a few months prior in hopes that they could determine whether the two crimes were related.

Keval and Kishan claim they were subject to additional baseless stops and seizures the following month. Keval testified that in September 2010, he was pulled over without cause and detained by police for over an hour and a half.

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196 F. Supp. 3d 855, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96773, 2016 WL 3976999, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mehta-v-village-of-bolingbrook-ilnd-2016.