Black Family Handcuffed and Detained Get $8M

Jury in California says mother, two daughters were unlawfully detained
By Steve Huff,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 9, 2023 12:46 PM CST
Black Family Handcuffed at Starbucks Get $8M
   (Getty Images / z1b)

A Black woman and her two daughters who made a pit stop only to wind up in handcuffs have been awarded $8.25 million by a California jury. The Washington Post reports that Aasylei Loggervale and her girls were on a nine-hour drive in 2019 from their home in Las Vegas to the older daughter's school, Berkeley City College, where she was scheduled to take a statistics exam. According to San Francisco TV station KRON, Loggervale pulled into a parking lot near a Starbucks and a T-Mobile store, where Castro Valley sheriff's deputies Monica Pope and Steven Holland observed the vehicle for a while, then ran the plates, and determined it was a rental.

That was when Pope and Holland approached the driver. They told Loggervale they were looking into recent car break-ins and asked for her ID—which she questioned because she said had done nothing wrong, leading to an argument between her and Holland, per KRON. Loggervale then told one of her daughters to start recording the incident. When one of the daughters attempted to leave the vehicle to go to the bathroom, her door striking Pope in the leg, Holland detained the family. The Loggervales were cuffed and held at the scene for an hour before the deputies let them go.

Family attorney Craig Peters tells the Post they are "a rather private family," but felt that "what had happened was really wrong, and so they were willing to file the lawsuit and try to hold the sheriff’s office accountable." California's Bane Act, which allows juries to increase damages in cases revolving around constitutional rights, played a role in the final amount. CBS News has the breakdown on money: Holland and Alameda County must pay $2.75 million to Loggervale and $2 million to each of her daughters, while Pope and the county must pay $750,000 to each daughter. (More police stories.)

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