Background

The PCJ, working as part of a team of attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild Mass Defense Committee, has brought this action to challenge the mass false arrests of, and unreasonable force against, lawful demonstrators during the protests of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in November 2003 in Miami.

Law enforcement coordinated an all out assault on the First Amendment, engaging in widespread political profiling, and swept the streets of anyone viewed as being an anti-FTAA activist, effectively suspending the Fourth Amendment in the city for ten days. Pursuant to a joint federal and local operation plan under the auspices of Homeland Security, the Miami Police Department "spearheaded" a multi-agency taskforce, which included the Miami-Dade Police Department, the Broward County Sheriff, and 23 other local law enforcement agencies, 7 state agencies and 7 federal law enforcement agencies, in carrying out a deliberate plan to disrupt political protest.

Unabashedly, defendant John Timoney announced that defendants’ actions were based on the policy that: "[t]he easiest way to prevent violence and disturbance at the FTAA Summit was to use a heavy police presence to limit protest."