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South Pasadena pays $500,000 to settle civil rights lawsuit from Black Lives Matter protesters

April 28, 2023

South Pasadena will pay $500,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by Black Lives Matter protesters who alleged the Police Department failed to protect them against attacks by white supremacists during a series of protests in 2020.

Fahren James, the founder of Black Lives Matter South Pasadena, and Victoria Patterson, a Black Lives Matter supporter who has lived in the city for nearly 30 years, filed the lawsuit in 2021, alleging they were spat on, struck with rocks and, in one instance, nearly hit by a truck.

But they said South Pasadena police refused to take action against their assailants in all but one of the attacks and never properly classified any of them as “hate crimes,” according to an amended complaint in the case.

“I am an African American woman who was the victim of multiple hate crimes, but SPPD treated me as less than human, particularly when they sided with my White attackers, leaving them free to attack me again and again,” James said in an October 2021 statement announcing the filing of the case.

The department’s failure to arrest or cite individuals accused of assaulting the protesters “emboldened their attackers and left them in grave danger,” according to the lawsuit.

The city investigated and sustained 21 complaints against officers, according to a prior statement by attorney Laboni Hoq. The investigation found that officers had failed to follow the rules for reporting hate crimes, had not taken detailed and accurate reports, were hostile and dismissive to those reporting the crimes, and had turned off their body cameras improperly.

The city blamed the poor policing on a lack of training and assigned the officers to receive additional instruction on the “policies and procedures in place regarding hate crimes,” a spokesperson said in August 2021.

“After months of complaints by Plaintiffs and community members, the City finally investigated them and found that over half the police force had violated SPPD’s Hate Crimes and other policies in their response to attacks on Plaintiffs and other BLM protesters,” Hoq wrote in the amended complaint in November 2022. “However, on information and belief, the City failed to discipline a single officer in connection with these findings, resulting in zero accountability for the harms Plaintiff suffered.”

South Pasadena previously denied the allegations in prior court filings and initially attempted to have the case dismissed.

A press release announcing the settlement states the South Pasadena City Council authorized the $500,000 payment “in the interest of resolving this matter.” Deputy City Manager Domenica Megerdichian, listed as the point of contact on the release, declined to comment or to provide the settlement agreement without a reporter first submitting a public records request.

“While the City and its officers have been dismissed, this is an ongoing litigation with other parties, so we are not commenting at this time,” Megerdichian said in an email.

The alleged attacks happened from July to November 2020, according to the lawsuit. In the first, Joseph Richcreek spat on James and Patterson and “spewed racial epithets” at them. South Pasadena police were called, but did not arrest him. Two days later, the lawsuit states, he returned and threw rocks at James, hitting her leg.

When James attempted to have him arrested, the officer who responded told her she would have to make a citizen’s arrest before he could get involved. The same man came back a third time a week later and threatened the group with a metal pipe, and a responding officer declined to arrest him.

Richcreek eventually was charged with two counts of misdemeanor battery for spitting on the women, but not for the other incidents. Attorneys for James and Patterson attributed the prosecutors’ decision not to treat the matter as a hate crime to South Pasadena’s allegedly biased police work, which did not include interviews with witnesses.

In October 2020, another man “intentionally drove his truck over a sidewalk and almost hit James in order to stop her from putting up a protest sign.” Though officers arrived and found the truck still parked on the sidewalk near where James had been standing and were provided video of the incident, they did not arrest or cite him, as the officers believed he was not attempting to hit her.

The department later put out a press release saying it would recommend charges to the District Attorney’s Office, but prosecutors declined to pursue the case.

A coalition of civil rights and criminal justice advocacy groups asked Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office to investigate the South Pasadena Police Department in 2021. Bonta’s office acknowledged the complaint at the time and said it would review the matter, but has not released a conclusion.

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South Pasadena pays $500,000 to settle civil rights lawsuit from Black Lives Matter protesters

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