The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has affirmed a trial judge’s decision denying an Atlanta police officer qualified immunity in a federal suit over the arrest of a protest march participant who was filming police. 

The Dec. 26 ruling by the Eleventh Circuit panel sets the stage for a civil rights trial over allegedly aggressive tactics employed by Atlanta police in response to Atlanta protests stemming from a Ferguson, Missouri, grand jury’s 2014 decision not to indict a white police officer over a black teenager’s shooting death.