Appeals court reviews officer misconduct lawsuit involving New Orleans teen
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will decide if a case alleging officer misconduct, involving a teenager and two security officers, can go to trial.
A lower court had previously ruled in favor of the officers, arguing that because of the officers’ qualified immunity, attorneys for the then-teenager, Bilal Hankins, didn’t have enough evidence to sue.
On Tuesday, June 4, the appeals court judges heard from attorneys representing Hankins and the two officers accused of violating Hankins’ constitutional rights during a traffic stop in June of 2020 when Hankins was 18.
“The underlying issue here is the comment that Judge [Stephen] Higginson pointed out, which is the officers stopped these boys because they were in a nice car in this neighborhood,” said Nora Ahmed, one of Hankins’ attorneys and the legal director for ACLU of Louisiana.
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Hankins was pulled over at Camp and Valmont streets in New Orleans’ Uptown neighborhood after asking one of the officers for help finding a lost dog, according to the lawsuit. The officers pulled their guns on Hankins and his two passengers, including a 12-year-old boy, before allowing them to leave.
Attorneys for the officers say they had reasonable suspicion Hankins and his passengers may have been burglarizing cars because the BMW he was driving, which, according to court documents, was his mother’s, was registered miles away from where they were and that Hankins was driving slowly.
“That’s not this country. I believe that’s not this country,” said Ahmed. “I believe that’s not this state, and I one hundred percent believe that’s not this city.”
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The officers were employed by the Orleans Levee District Police Department and the Housing Authority of New Orleans, but at the time of the incident, they were working as patrol officers for the Hurstville Security and Neighborhood Improvement District.
An attorney for HANO argued their client should not be named in the lawsuit.
“It’s an issue of ‘what are these officers told they are allowed to do when they go around toting guns as private details in residential neighborhoods?’ And in the absence of the development of those facts, you can’t just release a party from a case,” Ahmed said.
The attorneys for the officers and their supervisors declined an interview, saying they will wait for the court’s decision, which could take up to three months.
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