The 75-year-old protester who was pushed to the ground by Buffalo police during a protest in New York filed a lawsuit Monday against the city, its mayor, and the police officers who were involved in the incident.
Martin Gugino was seen in a viral video approaching a line of police officers during a demonstration in June. Officers push him back, and Gugino falls onto the sidewalk and hits his head. Blood is seen pooling from his head after the fall. Gugino’s attorney Kelly Zarcone said that her client suffered a brain injury because of the incident. He spent about a month in the hospital recovering from his brain injury and a fractured skull.
Remember when Buffalo police pushed 75-year-old Martin Gugino to the ground during a June protest, resulting in serious head injuries?
Well, a grand jury has declined to indict the officers.
(Warning: Video contains footage some may find distressing.) pic.twitter.com/b1atAG0Dud
— The Recount (@therecount) February 13, 2021
Authorities dropped felony assault charges against officers Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski on Feb. 11, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said. Around 60 officers from the same crowd control unit resigned in protest after McCabe and Torgalski were arrested because of the incident. (RELATED: Buffalo Protester Pushed By Police Reportedly Suffered Fractured Skull, Can’t Walk)
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the Western District of New York, says that Buffalo’s Emergency Response Team was deployed to enforce “the unconstitutional and draconian curfew” put in place by the city. The complaint alleges that the police used “unlawful and unnecessary force” against Gugino “in an effort to suppress the exercise of his constitutional rights, including his right to protest.”
The city of Buffalo, Democratic Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, three police officers (including McCabe and Torgalski), and two police commissioners are named as defendants in the case.
“Gugino became the victim of police brutality at the very moment he was peaceably and constitutionally protesting against police brutality,” Richard Weisbeck, one of the attorneys on the case, said in a Monday press release. “If the roles were reversed, and Gugino pushed a BPD [Buffalo Police Department] officer who then fractured his skull, he would have been immediately indicted, and for good reason.”
