‘Nowhere to run to’: Lawsuit filed against Mayor Peduto, Pittsburgh police in wake of East Liberty protest
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Christopher Juring said he was trying to leave, trying to follow orders.
In a cloud of tear gas and smoke, Juring was walking on Centre Avenue sometime after 6:30 p.m. June 1, unable to see in front of him and unable to see the wall of Pittsburgh SWAT officers moving methodically behind him.
He couldn’t see them, he said, and he believes there was no way they could see him. As he walked in the direction he and other protesters had been ordered, he said he was hit from behind with rubber bullets. One struck him in the back, and three others hit the back of his right leg.
The details of Juring’s injuries — along with the stories of seven protesters caught up in the tear gas, smoke, rubber bullets and confusion that reigned in East Liberty early this month — are laid out in a class-action lawsuit filed Monday against Mayor Bill Peduto and a number of police officials. The lawsuit is in response to the tactics used to drive protesters from the area after police deemed the protest an unlawful assembly.
“I was walking away while they shot me,” Juring told the Tribune-Review in a video conference call Sunday, on which he was joined by attorneys from the Abolitionist Law Center and several other plaintiffs.
Photos of Juring’s leg and back show deep purple bruises with a deep red spot in the center where the bullets hit. The bruises take up most of the back of his thigh.
The lawsuit — which names, in addition to Peduto, police Chief Scott Schubert, Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich, an unknown tactical commander and Cmdrs. Jason Lando and Stephen Vinansky — demands a jury trial. Attorneys claim the mayor and police leaders violated the First, Fourth and 14th Amendments.
The federal lawsuit was filed for the plaintiffs by Maggie Coleman of O’Brien Law, Quinn Cozzens of the Abolitionist Law Center and Christine Elzer of the Elzer Law Firm. It comes less than a month after the protest against police brutality in East Liberty turned into alleged police brutality. Police officials have said they used tear gas, smoke and other less-lethal tactics to disperse protesters who were throwing rocks and bricks.
Representatives for Peduto and the Pittsburgh police declined to comment Monday, citing policy not to comment on pending litigation.
The protest had gone on peacefully for hours until it largely broke up around shortly before 6 p.m., though some protesters continued to march. The city’s temporary curfew did not go into effect until 8:30 p.m.
“People weren’t ready to go home,” said Donovan Hayden, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “I wasn’t ready to go home.”
Hayden said, as a Black man, he had grown up on streets that felt controlled by police, and he wanted to continue marching and chanting.
At the intersection of Negley and Centre avenues, the group that had continued on was met by a large van blocking the intersection — a van Hayden said most thought was blocking traffic for the demonstrators, as police had done for hours earlier.
Instead, “cops in riot gear, all with sticks” formed a line in front of the group and, eventually, declared the protest an unlawful assembly.
Hayden and others said a standoff of sorts ensured, with the line of police holding about 30 feet away.
A video included in the lawsuit seems to show at least one officer firing a projectile at one of the protesters off screen. The camera eventually pans and shows individuals helping to drag a man to the sidewalk.
Later, Hayden watched an 11 p.m. televised news conference with Peduto, Schubert, Hissrich, Lando, Vinansky and another SWAT officer. He said he was disheartened to hear them say no tear gas had been used.
Police officials dispute the characterization that they misled about the use of tear gas, claiming they only said no gas was used at the intersection of Negley and Centre.
SWAT Officer Steven Mescan, who spoke toward the end of the news conference, said this when asked about crowd control and tear gas: “In regards to crowd munitions that are used to help manage or control a crowd, were they used tonight? No, they weren’t. We did use gas on (May 30), which you all saw.”
Peduto has since said that he was only told of smoke being used to disperse protesters when he spoke that night. He ordered an investigation into the police tactics.
Juring, too, found the news conference “upsetting and disturbing.” He said there were no volleys of bricks from what he had seen, and a majority of protesters were locals, not out-of-town agitators.
“They were claiming all these things – they didn’t use tear gas or rubber bullets,” he said. “I was lying down on the couch, and my partner was trying to stop the blood coming out of my legs.”
Jay Yoder did not have the chance to see the news conference that upset Hayden and Juring, as Yoder was one of at least 22 who were arrested that evening.
Yoder, a trained international human rights observer, said they were at the protest to support the cause as well as observe and record police conduct and offer medical help, if needed. (Yoder uses the pronoun “they” for gender identity.) They, too, were near the intersection of Centre and Negley when the protest took a turn.
Yoder said they watched as a line of police in riot gear shot a canister — tear gas, they believe — at a group of four or so protesters who stood in front of the police with their hands up.
Yoder called the entire ordeal disturbing.
“It was disturbing to me as someone who has been in international conflict zones,” Yoder said.
Video shows Yoder yelling to officers that they were “just trying to get to my car. My car is this way.”
Yoder said an officer told them it was too late.
The video then shows police screaming for Yoder to “get on the ground, get on the ground.” The final frames show Yoder on the ground, having turned the phone to record their face. “I’m on ground, I’m on the ground,” they say before the filming stops.
Yoder spent the night in jail, charged with disorderly conduct and failure to disperse.
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, about two weeks later, dropped charges against 22 protesters arrested that night for failure to disperse.
Yoder said there was no way for some protesters to disperse, as police had blocked any way off the street.
Nicole Rulli and Charles Bryant Jr. brought their 13-year-old son to the protest. They wanted him to see the Constitution in action — a peaceful protest against police brutality.
Rulli said they got there late, just as the majority of the protest was winding down and the smaller group set off on Centre. She, Bryant and their son were among those who came up against the line of officers in riot gear near Negley and Centre. She described a scene similar to what Hayden saw: protesters standing still, squaring off against the line of officers, when an officer shot some type of munition and struck one of them in the leg.
“They shot some guy who was like — they just shot him,” Rulli said. “(Others) carried him to the side, then (police) shot a tear gas canister at the front of the line, and then everybody started to run. There was nowhere to run to.”
The family made it to what they thought was a safe spot, and Rulli asked Bryant for a lighter — she wanted a cigarette to calm her nerves. As he handed her the lighter, two police SUVs, a SWAT truck and an ambulance pulled up. Rulli alleged that an officer hopped off the SWAT truck and tossed a tear gas canister that was so close it bounced off her foot.
“I said, ‘(Son), run,’ ” she recounted.
He ran, just as Rulli said she collapsed, overcome by the gas.
One of the most discouraging things, Rulli said, was how it all fell apart. Until that point, she said, “I had never felt so American.
“I really felt patriotic,” she said. “I was using my rights, doing what was right, and fighting for something that was right.”
Simon Phillips, the final named plaintiff, said he was just trying to get home. He went for a walk after work and wanted to witness the protests. He said that as a local Black artist, he wanted to see that self-expression and feeling of community.
As things turned chaotic, he was caught up in the arrests. He spent the night in jail and received stitches in his wrist, where the zip ties used to handcuff him had dug in. His charges, like Yoder’s, were dropped. They were the only plaintiffs charged that night.
“I had no intentions of looting, rioting or vandalism during the protest,” he said. “My purpose was to congregate and express peacefully.”