A New Jersey court ruling reinstated a transgender man’s police-abuse lawsuit against the Jersey City police department late last month. The person was arrested in 2012 for shop lifting. His subsequent treatment and verbal harassment from offices formed the basis of the lawsuit.
The suit was filed initially in 2014 and detailed a range of threats and verbal abuse heaped upon him by the officers, including one who threatened to put his fist down Holmes’ throat, “like a f***ing man.”
It was dismissed in 2015 by Hudson County Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Turula. A three-judge panel of the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division reinstated the suit, writing that “[person] was in a uniquely vulnerable position, that the individuals making the hostile comments were police officers, who wielded tremendous power over arrestees, and that the comments included a physical threat.”
Jury selection in this case will be July 17 in Jersey City.
