Legal Action against Police Brutality

From: JGGORGEOUS@aol. com [mailto:JGGORGEOUS@aol. com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2007 7:11 PM
Subject: Re: May 1 police attacks

As one of the attorneys that has agreed to handle cases of people victimized by LAPD officers during yesterday's May 1 rally, I wish to address the following subjects to organizers of the event.

1. We have recruited at least four lawyers to collaborate on litigation representing victims and organizations in a class action which will seek more than just monetary damages. All of us are associated with the National Lawyer's Guild, and have lengthy experience in handling police brutality and class action litigation.

The legal team will be headed by Robert Mann and Donald Cook of MANN & COOK. Their phone number will be publicly disseminated to victims, witnesses, and potential litigants. It is 213.252.9444. They have several staff members available to interview people, including in Spanish. We may need assistance with interpreters if other languages are needed.

Additionally, myself, Jorge Gonzalez (213.670.0063) and Cynthia Anderson-Barker (213.381.3246) will be on the team. Their may be others added to the list by tomorrow.

2. I will dedicate the next two days (Thursday and Friday) to be available to interview people, victims, witnesses, organizers, etc., at the offices of CARECEN. All people who have inquiries, were victimized, are potential witnesses, and who have photographic or video evidence of the events should be encouraged to contact me there. My office phone will forward calls to my cell phone (213.598.3278 - not for public dissemination) . I will meet at noon on Thursday with organizers as a group to discuss potential interviews by Internal Affairs or the Inspector General. DO NOT agree to be interviewed by anyone, not IA, the IG, or the media without talking with me first so that you are properly prepared. My suggestion is that all interviews be coordinated by myself so that an attorney is present and tapes each interview.

3. Everyone and every organization who has compiled a list of witnesses or victims, should forward this information to me. In other words, I will act as the liason with the lawyers and will serve as a clearinghouse for the information. We will need to interview everyone in a formal manner, and I will try to coordinate that. WE can use volunteers for this effort, and anyone interested and available should let me know. We will need to do at least a perfunctory training for this. Anyone who was present during the march should at least make an effort to write down their experiences. Do not worry about completeness, grammar, etc., the idea is to let us know who might have possible useful information.

4. Both CHIRLA and CARECEN will consider being a named plaintiff, and even if you did not suffer injuries, you may be a potential litigant also. The point to class action litigation is we intend to represent everyone who as a class (to be defined) might be injured in the same fashion in the future in any subsequent demonstration, march or rally.

5. It will be especially helpful to compile all known sources of recording of the events, particularly digital photographs and videos. We have already identified some, and people should be encouraged to provide it to us on cd. Emailing it may be alright, but I am concerned some files might be too big to exchange via internet, and a cd or flashdisk would be more practical. NOTE: for any such documentation to be useful in court, we need the identity, address, and telephone number of the person taking the photos or videos.

6. My mind is running a hundred miles an hour and I'm sure much is being left out, but I can be contacted the next couple days at CARECEN to discuss these issues more. Please encourage anyone who has information which might be useful to make an effort to contact me. Please disseminate this to all organizers, organizations, or persons of interest so that this message can get out as widely as possible.

Saludos y gracias.

Jorge Gonzalez

A PROFESSIONAL CORPORATION

Post Office Box 2739

San Gabriel, California 91778-2739

Tel. 213.670.0063