A freelance photographer arrested while on assignment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution claims in a recently filed lawsuit that Georgia State University police officers unjustly detained him, yanked his hair while he was handcuffed and convinced campus construction workers to falsely accuse him of participating in a protest against Atlanta’s public safety training center.
Benjamin Hendren has brought an unlawful seizure lawsuit against five GSU officers as well as Brasfield & Gorrie, one of the contractors hired to work on training center construction, and two of its workers.
Hendren said he was wrongfully detained on July 29, 2022, while photographing the arrests of training center protesters near a Brasfield & Gorrie construction site housing the GSU Convocation Center. He said he never entered the campus construction site that protesters damaged, but that the GSU officers who detained him manufactured a lie to justify doing so.
The lawsuit, filed July 1 in the federal trial court in Atlanta, alleges that the officers encouraged two Brasfield & Gorrie employees to falsely state that Hendren had committed criminal offenses at the construction site.
“Each of (the GSU officers) knew that Hendren had not been at the construction site,” the complaint states. “(The officers), along with Atlanta Police Department officers, continued to search for any justification to hold Hendren. But there was no justification whatsoever.”
Hendren was detained at a GSU precinct for about seven hours before being released without charge, the lawsuit states.
GSU did not immediately respond to questions about the case. Brasfield & Gorrie said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation. The Atlanta Police Department is not a party to the case.
Hendren was lawfully parked in the Summerhill neighborhood, about half a mile from the campus construction site, when he began to photograph people being arrested, the lawsuit states.
Hendren did not commit a crime or interfere in any way and law enforcement did not ask him to move from the public sidewalk from which he was photographing, it states. The GSU officers “approached Hendren as he was taking photographs, put him in handcuffs, and told him to sit on the curb” solely because they didn’t like being photographed, the lawsuit states.
Officers ignored offers to view Hendren’s media credentials or speak with an AJC editor even though Hendren repeatedly told them he was not part of the protest group but was there as a journalist, it states.
In addition, the lawsuit says, GSU officers tried to humiliate Hendren by taking photographs of him while he was handcuffed.
“When Hendren tilted his head down to avoid being photographed, (the officers) grabbed his hair and yanked his head up so he could be photographed against his will,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit also said one of the GSU officers falsely claimed to have seen Hendren at the campus construction site, then encouraged Brasfield & Gorrie workers to back up that allegation.
A GSU officer wrote a report stating that Hendren was arrested because the Brasfield & Gorrie workers had identified him as a protester inside the construction site, the lawsuit states.
Hendren’s claims against the defendants include unlawful seizure, false imprisonment, retaliation and negligence. He wants unspecified damages and attorney fees.
Hendren’s case is one of several filed in response to arrests associated with protests against Atlanta’s public safety training center.
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