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The lawsuits keep piling up for Portland police.
Two more people have sued the Portland Police Bureau for excessive force during a 2016 protest—this one a demonstration in City Hall against a new police union contract.
Protesters didn't like the body camera policy proposed by then-Mayor Charlie Hales, which they said had been developed without citizen input and allowed unequal access to the footage.
During that heated protest in October 2016, officers doused demonstrators with pepper spray. The lobby melee resulted in several complaints of excessive force— all but one were dismissed.
Sara Phillips alleges that a Portland police officer threw her down a flight of City Hall stairs. (The lawsuit says Phillips uses the pronouns she, her and they.) Phillips has a prosthetic leg and uses crutches, and was attending the protest as a National Lawyers Guild observer.
She says in her lawsuit she tried to tell officers she was disabled.
"Because they were losing their balance, Mx. Phillips reached for anything to keep from falling, yelling that they only had one leg and were disabled," the lawsuit says. "They grabbed the officer's vest to keep from falling, but the officer then threatened them with arrest, claiming that they were attacking him."
Phillips seeks $100,000 in damages.
The other lawsuit is by a protester named Linda Senn, who says she was pepper sprayed in the face by a Portland police officer and again by a Multnomah County Sherrif's deputy. She seeks a jury trial.
A Portland police spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
The two lawsuits come a day after an anti-Trump protester sued the Police Bureau for false arrest while he carried a Mexican flag through the streets shortly after the 2016 presidential election.
These suits join at least two other pending cases and two tort claims alleging Portland cops brutalized protesters. Meanwhile, national media attention is focused on the hands-off approach to protesters who blocked traffic last weekend and attacked a car with a baton.
Portland police still don't have body cameras.