A Black man filed a lawsuit against a police department in Wisconsin who falsely arrested him following a call from his neighbor.
On Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020, Yahoo! News reported that Keonte Furdge filed a lawsuit against the Monona Police Department located in Monona, Wisconsin.
On June 2, Furdge was sitting on the porch of his home when someone reportedly called the police. The lawsuit states that a person called 911 and told authorities that a suspicious Black person was next door and described what he was wearing. Furdge, 23, and his roommate recently were allowed to stay in the home owned by their former high school football coach after the coach’s mother died.
When officers Jared Wedig and Luke Wunsch arrived at the home, they reportedly entered without a search warrant. Wedig yelled to see if someone was inside the home and pointed a gun at Furdge once he encountered him in a room.
The cops placed Furdge in handcuffs, and bodycam footage revealed that he knew Wunsch. Furdge asked why he was being detained, and the officers told him that a neighbor called the police after seeing him on the porch. After about one minute, the officers removed the handcuffs from Furdge’s wrists and told him that they would alert other neighbors that they were legitimate residents of the home.
Wunsch apologized to Furdge, telling him, “I am glad it was you and I recognized you versus somebody who I didn’t know, but, ah, that is still not, nobody wants that interaction.” He also said the neighbors were likely worried because Furdge and his roommate “were two big Black guys.”
According to Furdge’s attorney, the lawsuit “seeks to vindicate the violation of Keonte Furdge’s constitutional rights. It seeks to effect change through punitive damages by punishing the Defendants for their egregious conduct with the hope that the punishment is significant enough to prevent this from happening again in the future, so that a person can move into a formerly vacant house in the City of Monona and sit on his front porch without having to fear that the police will break in and shoot him.”
The state of Wisconsin has faced racial unrest during the past few months. After the police-involved shooting of Jacob Blake and the mass shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the state has become a central location for protests and will be viewed as a key battleground state in the November election.
View footage of the incident after the jump.
