This story appeared in today’s (6/26) Daily Post. To stay up to date on the latest news, be sure to pick up a copy every morning.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A judge has rejected the city of Palo Alto’s last-minute defense of its Black Lives Matter mural that was painted in front of City Hall with a depiction of Assata Shakur, who was convicted of killing a police officer.
The city tried to argue that the mural was a forum for public art, so the city could not and did not restrict what the 16 artists painted in each letter.
Censoring the artists’ proposals would’ve violated their First Amendment right to free speech, the city said.
“Palo Alto exercised minimal oversight of the content of the mural,” attorney Suzanne Solomon said for the city.
But six police officers who are suing said the city made this argument at the eleventh hour.
The police officers filed their lawsuit in June 2021, and the city didn’t make an argument based on the First Amendment until February.
“Any urgency that may now exist due to the proximity of the trial date has been created solely by (the city’s) own delinquency,” attorney Loren Nizinski wrote for the officers.
Judge Shella Deen sided with the officers on June 17, allowing the trial to proceed as scheduled on July 29.
The two sides will discuss a settlement five days before the trial, court records show.
The city has previously argued that the mural wasn’t offensive to a reasonable person and that the police officers didn’t suffer because of it.
The city will have to rely on those arguments now that its First Amendment defense has been tossed.
In response, the officers said the painting caused them to have depression, anxiety and sleepless nights. They “feared daily that they would be targeted, attacked or threatened at work because they are non-African-American police officers,” their lawsuit said.
Initially, the police union told City Manager Ed Shikada the painting of Shakur created a hostile workplace and asked him to take it down.
“The violent, intimidating and offensive content of the workplace speech is overwhelming,” said Sgt. Antony Becker, then president of the Palo Alto Peace Officers’ Association, in an email on July 10, 2020.
The mural was removed in November 2020. The city now has a residency program that pays social justice-minded artists to create public art.
Six officers filed the lawsuit: Eric Figueroa, Michael Foley, Robert Parham, Julie Tannock, David Ferreira and Chris Moore.
Palo Alto City Council discussed the lawsuit privately on June 17.
Council is on break until August, after the trial is scheduled to begin.
