Antioch settles police misconduct suit (for targeting Section 8 housing)

[alp227]

Source: SF Chronicle

(10-26) 08:37 PDT ANTIOCH -- The city of Antioch said today that it has agreed to pay $360,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by a group of low-income African American renters who said police targeted them for special patrols and pressured landlords to evict them from federally subsidized housing.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in 2008, had accused the city of disproportionately concentrating on subsidized Section 8 housing for the poor.

The plaintiffs said city officials had reacted to a near-doubling of the black population in five years by forming a squad of police, known as the Community Action Team, that searched their homes illegally and warned landlords they could be held responsible for tenants' misconduct.

Last year, a judge granted the plaintiffs' motion for class-action status, expanding the suit to represent "all African Americans who have held, currently hold, or may hold Section 8 housing vouchers, and all members of their households, who reside, have resided or will reside, in the city of Antioch."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/26/BAT61LMHG0.DTL

[Sinistrous]

1. The city got off way too easy.

[defendandprotect]

2. +1 --

[ThomCat]

3. I agree.

Especially because it is taxpayers who will pay this fine, and the police won't feel even the slightest hint of a reprimand for what they have done.

It is always taxpayers who pay for police misconduct. x(

We need to find a way to make the police department responsible for their actions. How about forcing every officer, and those in their chain of command, perform a few thousand hours of community service when they are found to be abusing people's rights?

Or how about forcing police to obey the law by making them accountable to the law. If they break the law, send them to jail!