ACLU files lawsuit against McKeesport, its police department, Allegheny County

LAWSUIT FILED—Solomon Furious Worlds, staff attorney at the ACLU of Pennsylvania, Tanisha Long with the Abolitionist Law Center, McKeesport resident Courtney Thompkins, Take Action Advocacy Group CEO Fawn Walker Montgomery. Black residents say police went way over the top during search for suspect & The New Pittsburgh Courier has learned that the ACLU of Pennsylvania has filed a lawsuit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas against the city of McKeesport, Allegheny County, and numerous named and unnamed police officers, regarding the violation of some McKeesport residents’ Fourth Amendment rights and the Pennsylvania Constitution during a police search for a shooting suspect in December of 2020, according to a statement from the ACLU. One of those residents is Courtney Thompkins, a Black woman who said during a news conference just steps from the McKeesport police station on Dec. 4 that officers bombarded her home, with her left to figure out why. She let them inside her home, but no one else was there. She didn’t know that a suspect was on the loose, accused of shooting a police officer, but she said it was still uncalled for— the police’s actions at her home, or stopping her partner’s vehicle before...