A Portland man on Tuesday filed a $400,000 lawsuit against the city and a police detective he claims hit him with a baton outside his home during a protest last year.
Elijah Warren said in the lawsuit that tear gas deployed by police entered his Southeast Portland home on Sept. 5, the city’s 100th consecutive night of protest, causing his son and son’s friend to yell in pain and wash their eyes out with water.
Warren, a Black man, said he went outside to talk with police about their use of tear gas and was having a peaceful conversation with an officer when Detective Erik Kammerer came from behind and struck him on the side of his head with a baton.
The impact happened “out of the blue,” Warren said at a Tuesday news conference, where he became emotional while discussing the incident.
“I came back inside my house, and my son thinks I was stabbed or something because there was so much blood,” Warren told reporters.
Warren’s lawsuit says he suffered a concussion and a cut to his right ear. The lawsuit also cites humiliation and fear of police and racial stigmatization.
“It’s clear that this Portland police officer targeted him because he was Black and thought he was a protester, and therefore thought he could use any force he wanted to,” Jason Kafoury, Warren’s attorney, said in the lawsuit. “We’re hoping to show that this will not stand in our city.”
Warren said he hopes Kammerer will quit his job and that the lawsuit will push for police accountability.
Portland police “work for us,” Warren said during the news conference. “They are supposed to protect us. They’re not supposed to be terrorizing us.”
Kammerer, the subject of other complaints from demonstrators, was among a handful of officers removed from crowd control enforcement last year. He remains a homicide detective.
The lawsuit is the second this month to be filed against him.
Portland resident Aaron McCarthy claimed in a lawsuit filed May 7 that Kammerer entered his lane while driving an unmarked police car on Southeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, forcing his car into a concrete barrier and causing it to spin 180 degrees.
McCarthy said he suffered injuries to his back, neck and upper extremities during the crash. He’s seeking $23,000 in damages.
Kammerer also faces a federal lawsuit from a woman who accuses him of targeting and falsely arresting her after she spat in the direction of a police van while walking home from work during a 2019 protest.
Hannah Ahern was accused of disorderly conduct in the incident. The charge was dismissed last year, and the city has not yet responded to her lawsuit.
The Portland Police Bureau declined to comment about Warren’s lawsuit, and the city attorney’s office did not immediately respond to Oregonian/OregonLive questions.
A representative from Portland’s Independent Police Review said the office cannot answer questions about ongoing investigations into complaints about police officers.
--Savannah Eadens; seadens@oregonian.com; @savannaheadens; 503-221-6651