A trial involving a queer Arab-American woman who claims San Francisco police severely injured her during a 2013 traffic stop got under way this week in Oakland.
In her lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, Nyla Moujaes, an attorney who advocates for homeless people in Berkeley, claims that police Officer David B. Wasserman and Sergeant Gary Buckner were already pointing their guns at her when they approached her "allegedly" for making an illegal left turn at Mission and 16th streets July 14, 2013.
Moujaes says she complied with their request to show her hands. When she asked why she'd been stopped, Wasserman "pulled her and threw her to the ground," dislocating her shoulder.
Other officers who arrived at the scene "failed to mediate the brutal assault," and after police handcuffed her, they delayed in getting her medical help, Moujaes, who also goes by the name "Tru Bloo" and often works as a hip-hop fusion emcee, claims.
"Ms. Moujaes did not resist arrest," her complaint says. "She was not combative. She did not know why she was stopped; and at no time did officers tell her why she was arrested."
Police took Moujaes into custody and charged her with resisting arrest, but officers had "gathered incomplete and inaccurate statements and made false reports," she says in her lawsuit. A news release indicates Moujaes wasn't formally prosecuted in the case.
Along with Wasserman and Buckner, the San Francisco Police Department and the city are also named as defendants, along with Sergeant Flint T. Paul, Officer Brent Dittmer and another officer whose name is listed as "Barry."
In their motion for summary judgment, defendants say that when Wasserman and Buckner first tried to stop Moujaes for the illegal turn, she "pulled her car over for a minute, pulled back into traffic, then started driving again. After a multiple-block slow-speed chase" with their lights flashing, the police got out of their car and went up to Moujaes when she finally stopped at a red light.
She "remained uncooperative" when they told her to turn off the car and get out, and when she "turned her body and reached toward the center console of her car instead of complying" with Wasserman's commands, he feared that she "may be reaching for a weapon. He therefore grabbed her left arm and pulled her out of the car," then handcuffed her.
Officers called an ambulance when she complained that her shoulder was injured, the motion says.
"While at the hospital, [Moujaes] refused to give a blood test for alcohol," defendants say. "The officers therefore cited and released her."
In court documents, Moujaes says that she'd initially been unsure whether police were trying to pull her over and that she'd been undoing her seatbelt before getting out of the car. She also claims police hadn't explained the purpose of the blood test.
Moujaes is seeking compensation for her injuries along with damages for her constitutional rights being violated, emotional trauma, and other problems.
Jury selection
The eight jurors who will hear the case were selected Monday, December 12. Opening statements were expected to start Tuesday.
One prospective juror, the chief financial officer for a San Francisco startup company, said during jury selection Monday that he doesn't "discriminate in employing people," but "I don't support legalized gay marriage."
He also said, "It would be a challenge" to be fair in the trial because he gives police "the benefit of the doubt."
However, he said, "I would try to be as fair as I could be."
Kevin Love Hubbard, one of Moujaes' attorneys, told Magistrate Donna Ryu that the man should be dismissed in part because he'd be "unable to accept that LGBT people might experience discrimination."
San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Margaret Baumgartner said that the man "did say he could evaluate the evidence in the case," but Ryu dismissed him.
The trial is expected to end by December 20.