Suit: Police chasing white suspect wrongly arrest Black man (Arlington, Mass.)

Source: Associated Press

Suit: Police chasing white suspect wrongly arrest Black man

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
August 3, 2022

BOSTON (AP) — A suburban Boston police officer who was pursuing a white suspect pinned a 20-year-old Black man to the ground as he was walking home and placed a knee on the man’s neck despite having no evidence that he was involved in any crime, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Donovan Johnson was minutes away from home after leaving work in February 2021 when a white officer who had been chasing the white suspect ran up to Johnson, drew his gun and threw him to the snow-covered ground face first, the lawsuit filed against the town of Arlington, Massachusetts, and three of its officers alleges.

The lawsuit says that the officer at one point pinned Johnson to the ground by placing a knee on Johnson’s neck. The complaint says Johnson yelled “I can’t breathe!”, but the officer “continued to pin Mr. Johnson to the ground with his knee,” while the white suspect police had been pursuing “was left unattended.”

The lawsuit filed in Boston federal court alleges that police violated Johnson’s constitutional rights when they stopped him, searched him, handcuffed him and placed him in the back of a cruiser before releasing him with no charges.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/crime-arrests-boston-lawsuits-massachusetts-6d95342c65226bb1d841947ae4b1603e