Antioch hit with third federal lawsuit alleging police misconduct
ANTIOCH, Calif. - The city of Antioch has been named in a third federal civil rights lawsuit alleging widespread abuse and misconduct by its police officers.
The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, names the city, individual current and former officers and three former police chiefs.
"What I'm most concerned about is the pattern and practice that allows for this unconstitutional conduct to occur in the department," said civil rights attorney John Burris.
Burris' clients in the latest suit are six men, one of whom was shot and wounded, and one woman, who says she was wrongfully detained and arrested.
"It's about the lack of respect. It's allowing officers to engage in this kind of misogynistic, racial profiling, homophobic conduct, and that is what we're trying to stop," he said.
Burris has previously filed two lawsuits against Antioch police on behalf of more than a dozen other plaintiffs. Those two suits have already been consolidated in court and this new one will be merged as well.
"These are not one-off cases, but there's a huge number of these people," Burris said.
The lawsuits come as a number of officers have been indicted in federal court for various allegations of misconduct.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta has opened a civil probe into the department.
The suits refer to racist text messages exchanged between officers that were first revealed by the Contra Costa County district attorney's office.
"There's 45 individuals in these texts. Not one of these individuals came forward and told the department," Burris said.
"So what we have is this kind of code of silence, code of non-snitching, non-talking," he said.
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The litigation comes as Antioch police is still without a permanent chief.
An attorney representing the Antioch police union had no comment on the litigation Friday.
The city has not responded to the latest suit in court, but attorneys representing Antioch have denied any wrongdoing or civil-rights violations in connection with the two previous suits.
Henry Lee is a KTVU crime reporter. E-mail Henry at Henry.Lee@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @henrykleeKTVU and www.facebook.com/henrykleefan