Jury trial ordered over arrest at San Francisco skateboarding spectacle
A federal magistrate judge ruled that a jury must decide whether San Francisco police had probable cause to arrest a 15-year-old bystander during the 2023 Dolores Park 'hill bomb,' a mass skateboarding gathering where police encircled the crowd and arrested 117 people, 83 of them minors, without filing charges against any of them. The plaintiff, identified as R.P., says he was only there to watch and was held zip-tied for seven hours with no bathroom access or ability to contact his parents.
Judge Lisa Cisneros dismissed claims against the former police chief and one officer but let core claims proceed against Lt. Matt Sullivan and Capt. Thomas Harvey, who coordinated and ordered the mass arrest, ruling that mass probable cause requires a reasonable belief the whole crowd acted as a unit. Claims also survive against an officer accused of over-tightening the plaintiff's zip ties badly enough to cause bruising and numbness.
The city faces a related class-action suit over the same event, with jury selection tentatively set for October.
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