Federal civil rights lawsuit filed in Washington alleges Metropolitan Police Department officers illegally struck Ms. White dozens of times on Jan. 6.
A Minnesota woman beaten by police in the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the U.S. Capitol has filed a $2 million civil suit for being repeatedly struck in the head and slammed into a concrete wall on Jan. 6, 2021.
Victoria Charity White, 42, of Rochester, Minnesota, alleges at least two Metropolitan Police Department officers unlawfully used “deadly force” by repeatedly striking her head and face with steel riot batons and fists at about 4 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.
The complaint—filed on March 27 by Washington attorney Paul Kamenar—names MPD Commander Jason Bagshaw and MPD Officer Neil McAllister, and alleges other unnamed officers took part in the beatings.
It alleges violations of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code § 1983. It is an amended version of a suit Ms. White filed representing herself in January.
“The defendants willfully and unlawfully seized plaintiff by means of objectively unreasonable, excessive, and indeed, deadly force that shocks the conscience, thereby unreasonably restraining and depriving plaintiff of her freedom and inflicting physical and mental harm and anguish,” read the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.
“Because of the senseless and unlawful beating she received at the hands of the defendants and the other MPD officers, Ms. White suffered great physical, traumatic, and emotional harm that day and continues to suffer to this day, particularly the traumatic and emotional harm,” Mr. Kamenar wrote in the lawsuit.
Mr. Bagshaw, the suit alleges: “Repeatedly struck an unarmed and defenseless White about her head, face, shoulders, and upper body with a metal baton and his fists.”
He is being sued in his professional and personal capacity, the lawsuit stated.
Mr. McAllister “along with defendant Bagshaw and other police officers, physically assaulted the plaintiff,” the suit said.
Mr. McAllister is also being sued in his professional and personal capacity.
According to the suit, video evidence shows Mr. McAllister “slamming Ms. White up against the concrete tunnel wall, whereupon, inexplicably, his bodycam is shut off for some 30 seconds.”
