A lawsuit against the city of Antioch, charging that police are racially targeting African-American recipients of Section 8 housing subsidies, has been revised and expanded to include a fifth named plaintiff and more than 800 unnamed plaintiffs.
City officials are refuting the new lawsuit as they had the previous suit, saying that police are responding to residents' complaints about the behavior of troublesome neighbors, and the officers' actions are not based on anyone's skin color.
The new plaintiff in the lawsuit is Priscilla Bunton, who joins Karen Coleman, Alyce Payne, Mary Scott and Santeya Williams in alleging that the Antioch Police Department Community Action Team (known as the CAT Team) tried to get her family removed from the Section 8 program, despite the family having done nothing wrong.
The suit alleges that CAT Team officers came to Bunton's residence on Sept. 25, 2006 to discuss complaints from her neighbors about noise from juveniles playing basketball late at night in her backyard. The officers saw her boyfriend in the driveway, discovered that he was wanted on an outstanding warrant and arrested him.
Officers then asked to search her home, but Bunton refused unless they had a warrant. They didn't have a warrant but searched anyway, saying they were authorized to do so by her boyfriend's parolee status, and found men's clothing and personal items in a closet and bedroom, according to the suit.
The next day the police sent a letter to the Contra Costa Housing Authority in an attempt to get Bunton removed from the Section 8 program because she had an unauthorized person living with her. The authority terminated her from the program.
The suit states that she appealed the decision to Superior Court, which sent it back to the housing authority for reconsideration due to a lack of evidence against her and failure to consider Bunton's evidence. The authority then rescinded its decision to terminate her, and she remains a Section 8 recipient. Bunton's story is similar to those of the other four plaintiffs.
The original suit filed by Bay Area Legal Aid (BALA) on behalf of those four plaintiffs has been superseded by the new suit. BALA has been replaced by four other Bay Area organizations: the ACLU, Public Advocates, Impact Fund and Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Brad Seligman, the lead lawyer on the class-action suit filed in federal court on July 16, said that the women wanted the suit broadened to include all others similarly situated. There are about 800 Section 8 vouchers held by African-Americans in Antioch, he said.
The new suit also seeks an order from the court requiring the city to stop targeting African American Section 8 holders, said Seligman. It's a powerful remedy, which basically says you're under the jurisdiction of the court.
The suit is based not only on the testimony of the five women (actually, six women, because a separate suit making similar discrimination claims against the city has been filed by a private lawyer on behalf of African-American Section 8 recipient Onita Tuggles), but also on data.
The suit's data analysis states that African-Americans comprise 14 percent of Antioch households but are the targets of two-thirds of CAT Team investigations. It also states that 72 percent of the unfounded referrals by the CAT Team to the housing authority (referrals that attempted to remove the recipients from the Section 8 program but did not result in termination) involved African-Americans and only 18 percent involved white Section 8 recipients.
City Council members have in the past affirmed their support for the CAT Team against the charges, but they are not responding to the lawsuit, referring reporters to City Attorney Lynn Tracy Nerland, who issued the following statement on behalf of the city:
We emphatically reject the allegations regarding our city's community-based policing efforts. We believe that any objective review of our city's policing efforts will reveal that these efforts are focused exclusively on criminal and/or dangerous behavior. Claims of other, sinister motivations are untrue and irresponsible.
Antioch's Community Action Team was established in July 2006 in response to neighborhood demands for help in dealing with growing crime rates and persistent neighborhood problems. The team brings neighborhoods and police into partnership to resolve issues, including violent crime, narcotics activity, dangerous or substandard structures and sanitation issues.
This partnership has been extremely successful. Antioch residents of every background have credited the Community Action Team with helping to restore the safety and security of their neighborhood's parks, streets and homes. Our city's residents have a right to be safe in their home and neighborhoods and our city government has an obligation to protect this important right.
Nerland held a press conference on July 16 in the City Council chambers to further address the allegations. It was attended by several residents who turned out at City Hall to show their support for the city, including two African-Americans: Gary Gilbert, former head of United Citizens for Better Neighborhoods, and Ellen Hayes, a member of the Antioch Police Crime Prevention Commission.
We have a police department we are really proud of, said Hayes. It offends all of us when people come up with these accusations against our chief and police department. We see that these people are clearly doing their job.
In Green Hills Circle there were 139 complaints against Section 8 families in their neighborhood, and that's ridiculous. Nobody should have to live under those conditions. We are not going to let a small minority of people affect the quality of life for all of us in Antioch. Some of these people are afraid to face the truth about themselves: it's their behavior that's causing the problems that they are having.
Gilbert thanked city officials for not backing down against the racial charges.
I appreciate the fact that the city has stood firm with this entire matter, he said. So many times when an issue comes up and involves race, people say, Let's settle this to make this go away.' I cannot express how proud I am that the entire city staff said, This is not about race, it's about behavior.'
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