(WWJ) -- A lawsuit has been filed against several members of a West Michigan police department after three black men were detained while touring a home for sale back in August.
The incident unfolded at a home on Sharon Avenue in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming, back on Aug. 1 when realtor Eric Brown was showing the home to a client, Roy Thorne, and Thorne’s teenaged son.
Brown, an African-American realtor, and Thorne were inside the home that afternoon when authorities arrived on-scene and demanded they come out of the house at gunpoint, according to the lawsuit, which names seven officers -- including Chief Kimberly Koster -- and the City of Wyoming as defendants.
Police said they were called to the scene after a neighbor reported that squatters were inside the home. Brown and the Thornes were all placed in handcuffs outside the home and forced into the back seats of separate police cars, despite telling officers they were not squatters, according to the lawsuit.
Ven Johnson Law announced Thursday morning the lawsuit had been filed in the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Michigan. Ben Crump, a trial lawyer who also represented the families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, will also be joining Ven Johnson Law on the case.
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The lawsuit claims the officers and the city’s police chief are guilty of excessive force, assault and battery and racial profiling, among other claims.
“Apparently, it was a slow day for these Wyoming officers since no other serious crimes were being committed. Seven members of the police department felt the need to respond to a report of squatting in this home,” Ven Johnson, said in a press release.“Upon the initial encounter, as opposed to simply interviewing these gentlemen, these officers apparently felt so threatened by two Black men and a teenager that they held them at gunpoint.”
Johnson says despite multiple attempts to explain that Brown was showing Thorne the home, “they were treated as criminals, threatened and handcuffed without any legal basis,” Johnson said.
“Let’s call this what it really is -- racial profiling in its ugliest form,” he said.
It was reported back in August that a week prior to the incident, a man who claimed to be interested in purchasing the home was arrested after admitting to police that he’d entered the house on multiple occasions without a real estate agent present. The homeowner had asked a neighbor to keep an eye on the house, and that neighbor apparently assumed the same individual had returned, which is why they called the police. That dispatch call can be heard in the video below:
The Wyoming Police Department has released body and dash camera footage of the incident, which can be seen at the top of the page.
In addition to the City of Wyoming and Police Chief Kimberly Koster, the officers named in the lawsuit are Officer Logan Wieber, Officer Lee Atkinson, Officer Devin Quintard, Officer Arrow Kotarak, Officer Zachery Johnson and Sgt. Brian Look.
Five separate counts in the lawsuit include unlawful detainment and excessive force, equal protection, assault and battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.