I have a civil rights case out of Butte, Montana that I am trying to find someone to take. I have too much on my plate right now and the ACLU told me that they do not have the resources to handle the case. If there are any kossacks out there who can help, please get in touch with me. I would be happy to act as local counsel, but I just can't take the laboring oar.
The Client is an African American woman from Butte. She has some mental illness issues and is involved in the AWARE program. She has one adult child and two other children in foster care (ages 13 and 2) and she is trying to get them back.
By way of background, the Client and the arresting officer, used to work at the same place. The arresting officer was the person who fired the Client from that job.
The Client was 8 1/2 months pregnant in March 2012. On March 5, 2012, the Client was walking at the corner of Granite and Alaska streets. She saw the arresting officer across the street (I got the impression that it is a “T” intersection) in her squad car. The arresting officer drove the car straight across, over the curb and onto the sidewalk, blocking the Client's path. The Client walked around the car. The arresting officer called out to her, by name, and asked her to stop what she was doing. She asked for the Client's drivers license and told her that she had a warrant for a traffic violation. This didn’t make any sense to the Client because her car had been stolen in 2010 and she had not driven since then. The Client asked several times why she was being stopped, but the arresting officer never gave a satisfactory answer. Finally, the arresting officer put the Client in handcuffs and told her that they would sort it out at the station.
The Client has an anxiety disorder and is subject to panic attacks. She began having one while she was at the police station. The sergeant at the desk was kind to her. He was afraid she was going into labor and called an ambulance to take the Client to the hospital. The Client overheard a telephone conversation between the sergeant and the arresting officer where the arresting officer told the sergeant that she wanted the Client to stay in jail overnight. The sergeant told the arresting officer that the ambulance had already been called. At some time when she was at the police station, a Notice to Appear for the following day was slipped into the Client's bag.
When she got to the hospital, she was having Braxton-Hicks contractions. She was admitted overnight for observation. Her doctor refused to allow the Client to be discharged until late the following afternoon. When the Client's driver picked her up, the driver found the Notice to Appear and discovered that the Client was supposed to have appeared in court earlier that day. They called the court to figure out what to do. The court couldn’t find any paperwork on her.
About a month ago, the Client started looking into her stop. She was helped by an officer at the desk. She asked for information about the warrant the arresting officer said had been issued, but the only thing the police had on file was a citation on March 5, 2012 for criminal mischief. The officer told her to call and ask for the arresting officer's voice mail and request the report for the 3/5/12 stop. It has been more than four weeks and the arresting officer has not returned her call.