Lawsuits over arrests in connection with the Occupy Wall Street protests continue to be filed in federal court. Yesterday, attorney Ronald L. Kuby filed suit on behalf of Heather Carpenter and Julio Jose Jimenez-Artunduaga, two people he said were swept up as part of an “indiscriminate mass arrest” after demonstrators and Citibank account holders went to a Greenwich Village Citibank branch to close their accounts on Oct. 15.
Brought under 42 U.S.C. §§1983 and 1988, and the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments, the lawsuit by the engaged couple state that they were part of a group of 20 protestors who entered the bank and held a “teach-in” on student loans and debt and closed their accounts because of a new $17 fee the bank was charging customers who maintained a balance of less than $6,000. After the branch manager asked them to leave, they were arrested on the instructions of New York City Police Chief Joseph J. Esposito outside the bank along with several others who were arrested inside the bank. The couple claim police brutality and allege they suffered injuries while being taken into custody in Carpenter v. The City of New York, 11 civ 8414.
