White et al. v Sacramento Police Department (Police Brutality)
Status: ACTIVE
On December 30, 2021, LCCRSF and co-counsel filed suit against the Sacramento Police Department (SPD) and City of Sacramento on behalf of a group of six racial justice demonstrators brutalized by police during the George Floyd protests in 2020-21.
SPD repeatedly deployed “less lethal” weapons, including tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, bean bag projectiles, pepper balls, batons, and flash bang grenades against Plaintiffs and their fellow racial justice protestors, while allowing organized white supremacist groups —who align with pro-police ideologies — to freely demonstrate and engage in violence against racial justice protestors with impunity. This violent and disparate treatment was consistent with a years-long pattern and practice of discrimination from the City of Sacramento and its police.
After the court denied Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Defendants agreed to pay Plaintiffs $350,000 for the harms Plaintiffs suffered during the protests, without conceding that they violated Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights or resolving Plaintiffs’ demands for policy changes.
On March 24, 2025, the case went to trial. During the two-week trial, Plaintiffs and other racial justice protestors testified about the harms they experienced at the hands of police and white supremacist groups. Several top SPD officials testified about the lack of training and discipline in the department, including that no officers were disciplined after the George Floyd protests, despite over two hundred self-reported uses of force that occurred over a three-day span. The Chief of Police testified that there were clear “training failures” in the department’s response to George Floyd protests in 2020.
On May 20, 2025, the court ruled that the City of Sacramento and the Sacramento Police Department violated the Fourth Amendment by using indiscriminate less-lethal force against the Plaintiffs during protests. The Court held it is “unreasonable to use less lethal force, including impact munitions and chemical agents, against individuals who were suspected of only minor criminal activity or who engaged in passive resistance,” including ignoring SPD’s orders to disperse when their protest was deemed an unlawful assembly. The Court found that SPD “had a policy of using overwhelming less lethal [weapons] during crowd control situations such as protests,” which violated the constitution. The Court also found SPD committed constitutional violations because “SPD did not discipline any officers for the use of less lethal munitions at the protests, nor did they implement any training to address training failures.” The Court held that “SPD’s failure to train amounted to a deliberate indifference” to racial justice protesters’ constitutional rights.
However, beyond the $350,000 paid to Plaintiffs for their injuries, the Court did not require Sacramento to make any further changes to its policies or practices. The Court found such changes were not necessary due to greater protections for protesters already implemented by the California legislature after the George Floyd protests, including California Government Code Section 7072 and California Penal Code Section 13652, which significantly limits how police departments may use chemical and kinetic impact weapons and requires de-escalation techniques before such weapons are used. The Court found these “post-2020 statutory requirements make a repeat of Plaintiffs’ injuries unlikely, especially because SPD’s policy or custom, as well as their training, now incorporate the demands of Section 13652.”
Plaintiffs were represented by LCCRSF, Disability Law United, and Siegel, Yee, Brunner & Mehta.