One year after a Newark High School student was thrown to the ground and arrested outside of his graduation ceremony, he has filed a federal lawsuit claiming the University of Delaware Police Department acted maliciously and violated his constitutional rights during the controversial incident.
Attorneys from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the law firm Jacobs & Crumplar filed the lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of the student, Mohammed Sanogo.
“June 15, 2023, should have been spent in celebration of his achievement, in the company of family and friends; unfortunately, the memory of that day will be forever tarnished,” attorney Patrick Gallagher said. “We look forward to getting justice for Mohammed.”
The suit names both the University of Delaware and two of the UD police officers who were involved in the arrest, Lt. Anthony Battle and Master Police Officer Valerie Battles.
Timothy Welbeck, an attorney for the Philadelphia chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the organization is trying to make sure a similar incident does not happen again.
“The lawsuit seeks to ensure other young American Muslims do not face what Mohammed experienced — driving while Black and Muslim, irresponsibly brought into the criminal justice system,” Welbeck said.
A UD spokesperson said the university does not comment on pending litigation.
The incidentThe controversial arrest happened in the parking lot of the Bob Carpenter Center, approximately an hour after Newark High School held its graduation ceremony inside the arena.
Video released by UD Police shows that the parking lot was nearly empty except for three cars — Sanogo’s and two others — that were parked near a bus shelter, and a few people were standing near the cars. The lawsuit says Sanogo and his friends were saying a Muslim prayer to express gratitude.
The video shows one of the other vehicles driving in a circle around the parking lot with a passenger hanging out of the window. The vehicle then returned to where Sanogo and a third driver were parked.
Seeing this, Lt. Battle and Officer Battles approached on foot and first confronted the driver whose passenger was hanging out of the car.
“Guys, you can’t be hanging out of cars and sh. OK. Go,” Officer Battles said. The driver complied and left, as did the third driver.
UD initially implied that Sanogo, too, was driving recklessly around the parking lot with someone hanging out his window, but in the video that was released, it was clear he remained parked the entire time until after officers arrived.
After the other two cars left, the officers approached Sanogo’s car. Sanogo revved the engine and quickly pulled out of the parking space. He then stopped at the red light to exit onto South College Avenue.
The two officers began running toward Sanogo’s car. “Taking him out?” Officer Battles asked the lieutenant.
“The officers rapidly approached at this point because they believed the defendant was attempting to flee and feared this erratic driving could potentially cause a collision,” UD Police Chief Patrick Ogden explained.
Officer Battles approached the passenger-side door, banged on the window and yelled for Sanogo to put the car in park. Lt. Battle went to the driver’s side and told Sanogo to get out.
Ogden said Sanogo was ordered to get out of the vehicle 12 times. Video from Officer Battles’ camera then shows Sanogo out of the car and Lt. Battle struggling to get him in handcuffs.
After about 10 seconds, Lt. Battle threw Sanogo to the ground, and the two officers spent approximately a minute wrestling with him in a flower bed before finally getting him in handcuffs. Cellphone video shows Sanogo attempting to stand up and get away from the officers.
“I have a condition,” Sanogo told officers, later explaining he has asthma.
While the original two officers were struggling with Sanogo, a third officer arrived, pulled out his taser and threatened to tase Sanogo’s two passengers, one of whom was filming the incident with his phone.
“Listen man, when I come over and everybody’s yelling and I see you guys going toward officers, man, I’m going to put the taser on you,” the officer later explained to the passengers, who were not arrested.
Once Sanogo was in handcuffs, he repeatedly asked officers for his phone, at one point raising his voice toward one of the officers.
“You’ve got to bring it down. You’re making this more difficult on yourself,” Officer Battles told him.
“Shut your mouth,” another officer said.
Sanogo’s passengers can be heard advising him to calm down.
Eventually, Lt. Battle pushed Sanogo into a police car.
At one point in the video, Officer Battles is heard explaining to a colleague why they arrested Sanogo.
“He spun wheels out of here after we told him to get out,” she said. “We gave them a chance to leave. He wants to spin.”
Police said in a statement after the fact that Sanogo spinning his wheels and drifting around a median “posed a safety threat to the officers and others who were in close proximity to the vehicle.” The video does show the two officers near Sanogo’s car, but it is not apparent in the video that they were in danger of being struck.
Sanogo was charged with reckless driving and resisting arrest. He was held for several hours before being let out on bail.
The falloutChristina School District officials did not learn of Sanogo’s arrest until four days later, but when they did, the incident ignited a firestorm.
The arrest drew strong criticism from local Muslim leaders, who alleged that Sanogo was treated differently because of his religion and race. Sanogo is Black. Lt. Battle is also Black, and Officer Battles is white.
A few weeks after the arrest, the Christina School Board voted not to have any more graduations on the UD campus “until further deliberation and review of the University of Delaware’s actions to rectify the matter at hand and steps to prevent such incidents from happening again.” Indeed, Christina held this year’s graduations at the Chase Fieldhouse in Wilmington.
“We will keep adding the sanctions until there is a positive response and an acknowledgement that they have done something egregious that they shouldn’t have done, they should have fixed it when it was identified, and that it will not happen again to any other kid,” board member Naveed Baqir said at the time, though the board took no further action.
After weeks of public pressure and national attention, the attorney general’s office dismissed the charges after Sanogo agreed to take a class designed to teach young adults to make better decisions.
Sanogo is now studying aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland.
The lawsuitThe lawsuit claims that Sanogo suffered damages as a result of the incident, including terror, anxiety, humiliation, emotional distress, loss of trust in police and deprivation of his Fourth Amendment and 14th Amendment rights.
“Another innocent young Black man was harassed, forcibly detained, and arrested by the police in America,” the suit reads. “Fortunately for this young man, he lived to tell the tale. Many others were not as fortunate.”
The suit alleges the two officers used excessive force and committed battery when they pulled Sanogo out of the car, slammed him into the ground and “crammed Mohammed by his legs into the police SUV.”
“At a minimum, Lt. Battle and Officer Battles touched Mohammed without his consent when they picked Mohammed off the ground and slammed him onto the ground, when they held him on the ground, and when Officer Battles threw her knee into Mohammed while he was on the ground,” the suit reads.
The suit also alleges malicious prosecution, arguing there was no probable cause to arrest him.
“Lt. Battle’s and/or Officer Battles’ motive in arresting Mohammed was not to bring him to justice,” the suit reads. “During their initial walk to Mohammed’s car — before they even came up to Mohammed’s car, which they knew was not the one with the person hanging out of it — Officer Battles’ asked if Lt. Battle ‘wanted’ them.”
The suit seeks unspecified compensatory damages, punitive damages and attorney’s fees.
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