Ray Lutz Sues San Diego, Officer for False Arrest, Battery in Occupy Incident
By Ken Stone
La Mesa Patch September 14, 2012
Last November, former candidate for Congress was arrested while doing voter registration.
Ray Lutz, a 2010 candidate for Congress known for his 11-day hunger strike, has filed a second lawsuit over his arrest last November in connection with Occupy San Diego.
His first legal action—targeting CB Richard Ellis Group as manager of the Civic Center property—was dismissed at Lutz’s request Jan. 27. One-time San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre represented Lutz.
But according to a nine-page civil complaint filed Thursday in San Diego Superior Court, Lutz is expanding his suit to include the city of San Diego, a police officer and two dozen others not yet named. His new attorney is Bryan Pease of downtown San Diego.
The suit says he was at a “small, unobtrusive table in Civic Center Plaza for registering voters,” when he was arrested by private security “that was then accepted” by police Officer Tony Lessa.
No monetary figure is mentioned in the suit, but Lutz seeks damages for the care and treatment of physical injuries and “emotional distress,” attorney fees, costs of suit and punitive and general damages.
No trial date has been set, the La Mesa native said in a statement Friday.
A video of the arrest was uploaded to the YouTube account of Julie Kramer the day Lutz was arrested. It has been viewed more than 18,500 times.
In the statement, Lutz says he put his registration table in an area of the square designated as private property open for public use.
He says the San Diego Municipal Code limits trespassing on private property but explicitly allows “peaceful political activities” in areas that are normally open to the public.
“Certainly, registering voters must be considered peaceful political activity that is a sacred right in our democracy,” Lutz said Friday.
He says he came armed in late November with a copy of a 1980 Supreme Court decision known as the Pruneyard case, “which clearly states that the public has the right to use privately owned malls for peaceful political activity, such as gathering signatures or handing out political literature, with time, place, and manner restrictions.”
Lutz, 55, said he had registered five voters and was in the middle of registering a woman who had just turned 18 when managers from the office building interrupted him and asked police to arrest him for trespassing...
See arrest video.
BACKGROUND STORY
LEGAL EXPERTS BLAST SAN DIEGO FOR ARREST OF RAY LUTZ, FORMER CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, OVER VOTER REGISTRATIONS AT CIVIC CENTER PLAZA
By Miriam Raftery and Ron Logan
East County Magazine
November 2011
“This is what they do in banana republics and undemocratic societies.”—former San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre, calling arrest a violation of the Civil Rights Act and the First Amendment
November 29, 2011 (San Diego) Updated November 30, 2011—Attorneys, civil rights activists and community leaders tonight are expressing outrage at the arrest tonight of Ray Lutz, former Democratic Congressional candidate who ran against Duncan Hunter in 2010 seeking to represent East County...
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