UMass Student Sues Police for Blarney Blowout Arrest
University of Massachusetts student Thomas Donovan, who was arrested during last year’s Blarney Blowout, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Wednesday against Amherst police for assault and false arrest.
The suit accuses police of using excessive force and falsely arresting Donovan for filming several officers in riot gear arresting another student during the March 8, pre-St. Patrick’s Day party. It names Jesus Arocho, Andrew Hulse, and three other unnamed officers as defendants. It also says officers violated Donovan’s First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
In the suit, Donovan, whose charges have since been dropped, says he saw police use what he believes was excessive force while arresting another student and began filming the incident on his smartphone. Shortly thereafter, an officer noticed him filming and told him to stop. Donovan says he had been standing 15 to 20 feet away and was not interfering with the arrest. He says he told the officer that he had the right to film.
According to the suit — filed in the U.S. District Court in Springfield — another officer pepper sprayed Donovan and then a third swung his arm at him and forced him face-down to the pavement, knocking his phone out of his hand. As Donovan was handcuffed, another officer repeatedly and deliberately stomped on his phone in “an unsuccessful attempt to destroy evidence’’ and out of retaliation for being filmed, the suit claims.
Donovan was held at the police station for five to six hours and criminally charged with disorderly conduct and riot (failure to disperse). The suit says that Arocho reported Donovan approached the officers, refused to leave the area when asked, and was pepper sprayed “as he began to close the distance between himself and the officers.’’ The video taken on Donovan’s phone, the suit says, proves those reports are false.
Donovan says he was to be suspended by UMass for the summer and fall 2014 semesters. However, the suspension was rescinded after a university investigation.
Donovan was a fourth-year, undergraduate legal studies student at the time, with plans to pursue a career as a Massachusett state trooper.
He alleges to have suffered physical, economic, and emotional injuries due to the officers’ actions and is demanding unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
According to MassLive, former Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said premature use of tear gas exacerbated the events during the drunken rowdy parties, in which 50 people were arrested.
Looking ahead to this years Blarney Blowout, the university will ban dormitory residents from having guests from March 5 to March 9. Last, more than 7,000 guests were registered in UMass dorms during the weekend of the parties and more than half of those arrested were not UMass students.
Additionally, the university will provide alternative activities, and downtown bars will not do any advertising for Blowout-related events.
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