Simaile Lutu, one of two plaintiffs in the suit, claims he fell victim to the longhaired Dog's "unique breed of justice" for the first time as he was playing semi-professional [football].
According to his suit, Dog and a cohort came to the Bay Area in 2005 to find a man who was wanted on a drug charge in Hawaii - someone other than Lutu, but who apparently played on the same [football] team, called the Renegades - on a bond worth $75,000. At [football] practice, the suit says, Dog, the A&E cameras, and unidentified Daly City police officers "descended on" Lutu and detained him. They eventually broadcast the encounter without his consent.
Within a week, that incident was followed by two more confrontations with police that Lutu claims were really orchestrated by Dog and his show.
"One hundred percent, [Lutu] is not the fugitive," said Jim Hammer, one of Lutu's lawyers at Gonzalez & Leigh. "The only thing they have in common is they're both Samoan."
Simaile "Cisco" Lutu and Frisco Leaea are the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by James Hammer, former homicide chief for the San Francisco District Attorney. The suit names Burlingame, Daly City and South City police among the defen-dants it says "publicly humiliated" the men during filming of the A&E program in May 2005.
"People like reality TV. It rates well and it's cheap to produce," said Hammer, whose firm, Gonzalez & Leigh LLP, filed the suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. "I think the idea of using people against their will in it is wrong. The blurring of what's entertainment and what's real police work is very worrying."
Hammer said Lutu appears in the latest season's premiere episode, which includes Duane and Beth Chapman's wedding, being accosted by son Leland Chapman at a practice for the Daly City Renegades, a semi-pro football team whose Web site lists Lutu as a 6-foot, 5-inch linebacker on the 2004-05 roster.
The suit says even after police determined Lutu was not Samu Savea, a suspected drug dealer, they detained him twice more in incidents that did not appear in the show.
The civil rights suit, which alleges discrimination against the two Samoan-American men, says officers with guns drawn arrested Lutu at a 24 Hour Fitness club in Daly City and at Blush nightclub in Burlingame, and claims that Chapman's crew orchestrated the takedowns.
"There was no warrant out for him at all," Hammer said. "He's not a fugitive."
A firefight has broken out in the sleepy Sacramento suburb of Yolo County, where a handful of Hispanic residents have accused the mostly white Superior Court bench of picking mostly whites to sit on the grand jury…
The plaintiffs seek a court injunction to stop what they call a "corrupt" practice as well as a declaration that the current procedures violate their constitutional rights of equal protection and due process.
"What we're guessing is that it's largely white folks referring white friends and acquaintances turning out mostly white grand juries," Jim Hammer, one of Serena's lawyers, said in an interview. His co-counsel are former San Francisco supervisor and mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez and Whitney Leigh…
Leigh said demographic studies of Yolo County show that Hispanics compose nearly 26 percent of the population, but their membership on the grand jury has ranged from as low as 5 percent to a high of 11 percent…
Similarly, he said, Asians compose nearly 10 percent of the population, yet in the past seven years, only three Asian members have been seated on the grand jury.
The unusual legal request, which was filed in Sacramento's Eastern District of the U.S. District Court, also alleges that Yolo County has shown a pattern over the years of excluding Latinos and Asians from grand jury service.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs are asking federal officials to step in and require Yolo County to adopt procedures in its selection process to enable more Latinos and Asians to sit on the grand jury.
"Yolo County's apparent lack of any formal rules or procedures governing selection of grand jurors... is extremely susceptible to abuse and seems to have led directly to the years-long exclusion of Asians and Hispanics from inclusion in Yolo County's grand juries," the motion for a temporary restraining order reads…
Whitney Leigh, a San Francisco attorney who is representing Serena and the plaintiffs, said the lack of specific rules for grand jury selection in Yolo County has left it open to abuse. He said Beal, the current forewoman, has served on the grand jury five of the past nine years.
"You have a coterie of people who appear to be picking their friends to be on the grand jury, which leaves it susceptible to abuse," said Leigh.
According to the court filing, residents of Latino descent comprise almost 26 percent of Yolo County's population, but have accounted for only 5 to 11 percent of the makeup of Yolo County's grand jury in the past seven years. During the same time period, residents of Asian descent in Yolo County made up almost 10 percent of the population, while only three have served on the grand jury.