A 25-year-old filmmaker who sued the city of Los Angeles — alleging his uncle, an LAPD officer, ordered his nephew be shot with two projectiles during a 2020 downtown protest in the wake of the George Floyd killing — has been awarded $3.75 million by a jury.
A. Jamal Shakir Jr.’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit against the city and LAPD Officer Eric Anderson alleged civil rights violations, assault and battery, false imprisonment and negligence. The jury reached its verdict in favor of Shakir on Tuesday at the end of a 10-day trial.
“That Anderson would direct that his own nephew be shot twice even with rubber bullets, though he was peacefully protesting, should send chills through us all,” plaintiff’s attorney Carl E. Douglas said in a statement following the verdict. “It speaks volumes about how far we still have to go as citizens of this great city before seeing true reform.”
Douglas further said that, in his 40 years as a civil rights lawyer, he never encountered “so stark a tragedy as a police officer using excessive force against his own blood.”
In their court papers, lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office maintained the force used against Shakir was “caused and necessitated by the actions of plaintiff and was reasonable and necessary for self-defense.”
Shakir spoke about the suit shortly after its May 2021 filing.
“The irony of this entire story is just that I’ve spent my entire life doing everything to prevent being a statistic of the criminal justice system or being a victim of the police brutality force just due to the fact of my circumstances of my mother and father being incarcerated at an early age,” Shakir said at the time.
“To be able to do such a thing despite it being your family, your blood or your own people is something that is tremendously affecting the entire community.”
According to the lawsuit, the facts demonstrated “the heart-rending extent to which the current warrior mentality permeates the Los Angeles Police Department, threatening to destroy a Black family to its core from within.”
Anderson “turned his trained wrath against a member of his own family, leaving a promising young entrepreneur, his own blood, scarred and reeling in the wake of his malicious attack,” according to the suit — which further alleged that Shakir’s uncle “maliciously punished his own blood for merely calling him out against others protesting the tragic death of (Floyd), an unarmed Black man.”
Shakir was among hundreds of people peacefully protesting Floyd’s death between 9:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on May 29, 2020, near Fourth and Spring streets when he saw officers forming a skirmish line extending across Spring Street from one curb across to the other, according to his court papers.
Floyd had died under the knee of a now-former Minneapolis police officer four days earlier.
Shakir walked between the officers and the protesters, encouraging the LAPD members “to drop down their arms and join the protesters,” including a man who he recognized as his uncle, the suit says. Anderson was directing other officers to fire projectiles at specific protesters, prompting the plaintiff to tell him “that one of their ancestors would be `turning over in her grave’ were she to see him at that moment,” the suit alleged.
Suddenly, Anderson motioned his hand in Shakir’s direction and told another police officer to shoot the plaintiff, and “Shakir screams out in agony as the projectile damages his right hand,” the suit alleged.
Shakir dropped one of two cell phones he was holding to record the events, and when he reached down to pick up the device, he was shot in his buttocks with another projectile, the suit stated.
“Terrified and fearful of further attacks, Mr. Shakir picks up his phone and begins running away from the officers, zigzagging as he runs hoping to avoid being shot again,” the suit stated.
Shakir went to his nearby apartment, where he was met by friends who took him to a hospital, according to his court papers, which further said that police had an unwarranted fear that he “presented a serious threat to someone’s safety.”