The parents of teenagers caught in the mass arrests at the July Dolores Park “hill bomb” filed a claim against San Francisco on Monday, alleging that police officials violated their children’s constitutional rights.
The claim, a precursor to a lawsuit or lawsuits, lays out the teenagers’ version of events the night of July 8, 2023, when 117 skateboarders and spectators were arrested by San Francisco police officers who wanted to shut down the hill bomb. The informal event takes place yearly at Dolores Park, and involves skaters racing downhill. Several serious injuries and one death have occurred at the hill bomb in recent years.
The claim filed Monday by attorney Rachel Lederman details the accounts of four teenagers who said they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time that night.
One 13-year-old, Jolina Tawasha, was waiting “to be picked up by a friend’s father” when she and her friends were “corralled by SFPD officers.” A 17-year-old, Eriberto Jimenez, was heading home when “he and his friends were met by a line of SFPD officers pointing weapons” and prevented from leaving. A 15-year-old, Carmen Lopez, lives near Dolores Park and encountered officers who “did not give specific instructions about how they could leave or where they should go.”
Lucy Rios, another 15-year-old, was riding a scooter alongside two friends from Potrero Hill across the Mission when they ran into a friend, according to the claim, and paused on their ride “for a few minutes.”
“Suddenly, SFPD officers came running towards them … yelling at them” to go back from where they had come, the claim states. When they tried to comply and move off the street, “they were stopped by police” and told to go another way. Eventually, the friends were “trapped between police lines,” according to the claim. “There was no way out.”
The four teenagers and their parents are named as plaintiffs, but the claim was submitted as a class action and would cover all people “similarly situated” the night of the hill bomb. All 113 of the people who were trapped in a kettle formation by police, out of 117 total arrested that day, could be represented in future lawsuits, in other words.
The mass arrest, the largest arrest of teenagers in San Francisco in at least six years, took place after police attempted unsuccessfully to disperse the hill bomb crowds. Instead of scattering, skaters simply moved to different hills around the park before being chased off by officers. Several attendees tossed bottles and fireworks in the direction of police officers; others spray-painted Muni vehicles.
Parents, arriving in the moments after the arrest, demanded the release of their children, sometimes screaming at and rushing into the lines of officers. They were told to wait until their children had been booked, and dozens congregated outside nearby Mission Station, waiting into the wee hours for their children to be released. The last child was released at 4:15 a.m.
Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for City Attorney David Chiu, said his office is “reviewing the claim and will respond in the appropriate timeframe.”
No bathrooms, cold temperatures, teenagers soiling themselves
The bulk of the nine-page claim details the alleged mistreatment suffered by dozens of teenagers who were encircled by police after the hill bomb. Their claims matched reporting from the night of the incident and in the days after it.
After police spent hours pushing crowds of skaters from corner to corner, dozens of officers isolated 113 people — largely teens — on Guerrero Street at around 8 p.m., keeping them sitting on the pavement for hours before zip-tying them one-by-one and transporting them to Mission Station to be processed.
The claim describes teenagers dressed “for a sunny early evening” who were kept on the ground as “the temperature dropped and the night turned cold and windy.” Police did not provide warm clothing, the claim states, and this reporter observed teenagers dressed in tank tops and skirts being held outside for hours.
Teenagers also asked officers for bathrooms, which were denied, according to the claim: Those on the ground “implored” officers for “access to the bathroom,” and eventually “asked if they could relieve themselves behind a car, but the officers did not answer.”
The claim states that “a sympathetic neighbor tossed a bucket down from her window” to allow the kids to urinate, which helped some, but not all: “Others were forced to urinate in their pants, causing them shame, humiliation and embarrassment, and compounding their cold and discomfort.”
The claim also details how teenage girls loaded onto a bus for transport “were crying and begging to use the bathroom” and how, once they arrived at the Mission District police station, “an officer watched them use the toilet.”
Boys had their belts removed and struggled to keep their pants from falling off. One boy vomited on himself, according to the claim, but officers “just told the children to move that boy away from the rest of the group and left them to care for their peer on the street.” One of the plaintiffs gave the boy a water bottle, but “the police did not provide any water or food,” the claim states.
Once the boys were transported to Mission Station, they were kept in “an open air, concrete garage-like area” outside. A sprinkler went off, the claim states, and several boys got wet, but were not given dry clothes. They were finally allowed to use the bathroom at around 3 a.m., “approximately seven hours after they were first detained.”
All four plaintiffs said they suffered pain from overly-restrictive zip-ties, which officers refused to loosen.
The claim states that the “detention conditions violated SFPD’s own policy for juvenile detention,” which requires access to bathrooms, water and food. Those policies also discourage long detentions and use of police stations.
Lawyer plans state, federal class action suits after hill bomb
The claim, which details a litany of constitutional violations, gives the city 45 days to resolve the case outside of court. But the four named plaintiffs’ lawyer, Lederman, said she does not expect a resolution, and is preparing for state and federal civil rights lawsuits.
“I do expect that we will be filing a federal civil-rights lawsuit,” she said, “and we will be asking for other kinds of relief, in addition to money.”
Lederman said that, besides an unknown amount of damages, her clients will ask that the teenagers’ arrest records be “sealed and destroyed,” and that a federal court issue a “finding of exoneration,” in case the arrests are ever resurfaced during job screenings, for instance.
She said the suits would also seek reforms to city and police department policy “to prevent this from happening again,” but said the specific reforms would depend on information unearthed during the lawsuits’ discovery phase.
The claim specifically names three police officials: Police Chief William Scott, Lieutenant Matt Sullivan, and Mission Station Captain Thomas Harvey. Lederman said all three were behind the decision-making regarding the hill bomb crackdown, according to a public records request she filed regarding the incident. Harvey was the incident commander during the night of the arrests and was present on the scene, while Sullivan is a lieutenant in the special operations bureau.
Those arrested that night have since seen almost all of their charges dismissed by the District Attorney’s Office and Juvenile Probation Department, though the police department is still reviewing hours of body-camera footage and could recommend charges in the future.
Of course they have.
These are the types of vultures that are terrible for the city. Their little vandals faces a few tiny consequences for their actions. Boo hoo. So they need to extract millions of dollars from the city.
I hope they lose and that their own legal fees are immense.
Jesus Christ. Look at the age of these kids. The urge to punish, punish, punish these kids and feel righteous that their civil rights were violated in harsh, physical ways is really disturbing.
1982….no car, home to school and back for indeterminate time period. 2023…file civil rights claim, then complain the cops are doing nothing when burglaries and assaults increase in your neighborhood. At least you can still find good food in SF….
It would only be fair to require that any moneys paid be used to reimburse Muni for that J that got tagged that afternoon. But that’s not how it works of course.
I am constantly amazed at how people are ready to advocate punishment for people merely – and too often wrongly – accused of a crime.
Not everyone tagged MUNI.
Not everyone was a participant in the “hill bomb”.
IMO, there needs to be police accountability for mass arrests that include those detained without specifically observed sufficient cause in each and every case.
IMO, when people are arrested and treated like this – even if eventually found guilty of something – their rights have been violated. Our police too often act as judge and jury rather than mere doing the job of apprehending people who will later be charged and tried.
Great parenting.
Next time just close the streets around Dolores Park and be done with it. Allow only residents with an ID to enter those streets. If anyone else slips by, arrest them.
Why not build a wall then?
AYKM? Wow, never would I have thought people with this kind of view would choose to live here.
“Aggrieved parents support criminal behavior,” the headline should read. When something like this happens, it’s never their darlings. Out of towners did it. Or the cops made them do it. Or they were reacting to the trauma of childhood. Or it’s systemic racism.
These “kids” trashed my neighborhood in an episode of mass looting. I was there and strangely enough managed not to get arrested. Why is that?
By the way, when one of these skateboarders cracks his head open and needs intensive care and lifelong rehab, the city will be sued. We the taxpayers will be on the hook for the rest of their lives.
Teach your kids how to be responsible and not act like brat punks we wouldn’t have these issues. Some parents still have some growing up to do themselves, get off the computers and hang out with your kids.
I’d like to see the “other kinds of relief” include general orders or local ordinancc that prevents any SFPD employee from using qualified immunity to insulate themselves from personal consequences of civil rights violations.
That’s how we get civil rights violations to stop.
Just give it up. Dismiss the charges and go home. Lots of mistakes made by everyone involved that day. Forget it and move on. If anyone should file a suit it should be SF citizens against the morons who tagged the streetcars and busses and terrorized the passengers.
I don’t think it’s possible for an ordinance to prevent a SFPD officer from invoking qualified immunity. That is something that would need to take place at the state level.
Regardless, this lawsuit is against San Francisco (according to this article) and qualified immunity is irrelevant.
Individual officers and brass that ordered this civil rights violation could be sued in their personal capacities: invoke qualified immunity and lose your SFPD job and pension, that’s the simple way to coerce compliance from a rogue law enforcement agency.
Lose your job and pension for invoking state and/or federal law in court? Yeah, no.
Yep, as a condition of employment, SFPD officers pledge to not invoke qualified immunity at risk of their pensions.
Don’t like it? Work somewhere else.
When will the police department have to pay for their own lawsuits? That department seems to be doing nothing except costing the City money in lawsuits and superfluous recall elections, driving around in their cruisers (always in pairs), and hanging out in groups at coffee shops.
so much hatred towards young people. it’s no wonder they feel the political landscape (class) is totally out of touch with protecting their futures.
juveniles have special consideration given their age and under developed reasoning (children behave like children because they’re children) yet many here view them with fear and contempt. it appears the 1960’s san francisco is back, eh?
the evidence is already in the public domain.
there was a planned sfpd police action against a large group of young people for which no one in charge felt the need to prepare for and accommodate the consequences of a mass arrest. sfpd then subjected the alleged suspects to abusive conditions in front of the public.
the abusive behavior is normal for sfpd when making an arrest of a suspect. what is not normal is these were juveniles. it is good that public sees how they misbehave. unfortunately, so many like to see cops beat up (and murder) young people (again). sorry george.
They fired fireworks at the police!
What kind of parenting is that?
A good parent I’m pretty sure would say it was a lesson in life, and to stay out of trouble.
My Mission property has been tagged 10,000 times in the 42 years I’ve owned it. I could care less about the cretinous scum.
The heading is misleading, the teens involved in the lawsuits were not participants in the H Bomb. I’m glad they’re pursuing retribution for what was harsh treatment by the police. But I hope others who were participants in the HBomb and vandalism get the book thrown at them.
That is your “opinion.” Where are your facts?
hope they fire those dept heads. bad leadership. glad some of the kids parents are doing well enough to sue. sf and sf police be violating rights all the time. and they get away with killing people as well. since brook the crook wont prosecute them.
My parents loved me unconditionally but they would not have automatically taken my side against the police. Nor would they have been gullible enough to buy my story about how I just happened to have been waiting for a ride and was totally not doing anything. Now I hear horror stories from teacher and soon to be ex teacher friends about being in physical fear from teens who have been brought up to assume there will never be any consequences for them.