A Wisconsin lawyer who spat on a teenage Black Lives Matter leader has been ordered to pay $760,000 in damages to police officers who illegally entered his home with a gun to arrest him without a warrant. Ta.
Stephanie Rapkin was filmed spitting on a high school student during a tense confrontation at a march in Shorewood on June 6, 2020, and ended up serving 60 days in jail.
But the complaint alleges that the day after the spitting incident, protesters showed up at her home to “confront her” and “verbally reprimand her,” when one of them accused her of shoving her. He was not arrested. Atlanta Black Stars Shared.
When the 20-year-old complainant called police, one of the responding officers could be heard saying on his body camera, “This chick is the one who spat in this kid's face.”
After reviewing the video of the alleged shoving, officers spent 30 minutes knocking on the attorney's doors and windows, discussing the attorney and planning to arrest her, the complaint states.[planstoarrestherthesuitsaid[彼女を逮捕する計画がある、と訴状は述べている。[planstoarrestherthesuitsaid
“If she comes out, please arrest her,” said one police officer.
Police then “conspired to come up with a justification to enter her home” without a search warrant, the complaint states.
After a neighbor told police that Rapkin was taking sleeping pills, police used that as an excuse to break into her home and offer her a welfare check, according to the lawsuit.
Body camera footage shows officers forcing their way through the front door with guns and Tasers drawn, and a lawyer asking from the top of the stairs, “Do you guys have a warrant?”
“We're here looking for community caretakers, okay?” the official answered.
“I'm totally fine. I'm sleeping,” Rapkin said. She denied taking any medication and said she wanted to be taken off the medication so she could sleep again.
Police then arrested Mr. Rapkin in his living room, during which he claimed that an officer struck him in the groin with a knee, and Mr. Raskin said the officers pushed him against a wall and screamed in his face. he claimed.
She was taken outside as protesters cheered and stuffed into the back of a police cruiser.
Felony assault charges against Rapkin, who allegedly kicked the officer, were later dropped.
She filed a complaint with the Sherwood Police Department in 2023 alleging violation of her Fourth Amendment rights.
“Any reasonable police officer would have concluded that she needed to get a warrant or wait until her lawyer could take her to the station house and talk to her. Period,” the judge ruled.
“The officers had a very easy way to avoid trouble, and that was just call the judge,” Rapkin's attorney, James O'Dell, told TMJ4.
