Eight people who were arrested last year on the second day of the Democratic National Convention, filed suit against the City and County of Denver for wrongful arrest. They say they were wrongly identified as participants in a protest march. Police arrested of 106 persons and held them in a temporary incarceration center known as “Gitmo on the Platte,” saying they were acting on intelligence that the protesters could be part of an anarchist plot to “wreak havoc” on 16th Street Mall and delegate hotels. Apparently the activists had posted their intentions on a website.
The plaintiffs, according to the Post, include “a legal observer for the People’s Law Project, a journalist, students documenting the protest and onlookers.” Lawyers for the ACLU will be representing the eight individuals in the suit.
“With regard to policing protest during the DNC, Denver police sometimes got it very right, for which they deserve credit,” Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director told the Denver Post. “On this evening, however, Denver police got it wrong, very wrong.”
Silverstein said that of the 106 individuals arrested that evening, 54 did not accept a plea bargain and 38 of those were exonerated.
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