President Trump will have to face allegations his security team used excessive force against a group of Mexican protesters in New York shortly after the then-candidate announced he was running for the White House, according to multiple reports.
Bronx Supreme Court Judge Fernando Tapia on Monday ruled Trump should remain a co-defendant in the case accusing the president, the Trump Organization, and Trump’s former longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller, among others, of attacking the demonstrators in 2015 because a jury could find that Trump’s rhetoric at many of his campaign rallies “authorized and condoned” their violent behavior, the Washington Post reported.
The lawsuit claims that Schiller hit one of the protesters, Efrain Galicia, in the face outside Trump Tower when Galicia tried to take back a sign the ex-New York City police officer confiscated from him, according to the New York Daily News. The sign stated, “Trump: make America racist again.”
Galicia is party to the matter, along with four other Mexican protesters, two of whom were wearing white hoods and robes at the time of the incident, the Washington Post wrote. They were demonstrating Trump’s disparaging comments toward their country and people, including suggesting many of them were rapists.
The suit lists allegations of assault, battery, destruction of property, and negligent hiring and supervising. The protesters will ask the jury for punitive damages, one of their lawyers, Roger Bernstein, told the New York Daily News.
