A Minnesota woman beaten by police in the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the U.S. Capitol has filed a $2 million civil suit for being repeatedly struck in the head and slammed into a concrete wall on Jan. 6, 2021.
Victoria Charity White, 42, of Rochester, Minnesota, alleges at least two Metropolitan Police Department officers unlawfully used “deadly force” by repeatedly striking her head and face with steel riot batons and fists at about 4 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The defendants willfully and unlawfully seized plaintiff by means of objectively unreasonable, excessive, and indeed, deadly force that shocks the conscience, thereby unreasonably restraining and depriving plaintiff of her freedom and inflicting physical and mental harm and anguish,” read the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.
“Because of the senseless and unlawful beating she received at the hands of the defendants and the other MPD officers, Ms. White suffered great physical, traumatic, and emotional harm that day and continues to suffer to this day, particularly the traumatic and emotional harm,” Mr. Kamenar wrote in the lawsuit.
Mr. Bagshaw, the suit alleges: “Repeatedly struck an unarmed and defenseless White about her head, face, shoulders, and upper body with a metal baton and his fists.”
He is being sued in his professional and personal capacity, the lawsuit stated.
Mr. McAllister “along with defendant Bagshaw and other police officers, physically assaulted the plaintiff,” the suit said.
Mr. McAllister is also being sued in his professional and personal capacity.
According to the suit, video evidence shows Mr. McAllister “slamming Ms. White up against the concrete tunnel wall, whereupon, inexplicably, his bodycam is shut off for some 30 seconds.”
The department declined to comment on the suit.
‘Deadly Force’
The suit lists a litany of violent acts and the effects on Ms. White after she entered the Lower West Terrace tunnel.“Bagshaw reaches over his fellow officers and violently strikes Ms. White in the head with his baton five times in seven seconds,” the suit alleges. “The first blow knocks her MAGA hat off her head.”
In another instance, “Bagshaw moves his way from behind his fellow officers towards Ms. White to get a better striking distance and begins another assault. He spears and pokes White with his baton about the head, neck, and face to inflict maximum pain. Ledge officer sprays mace on Ms. White,”according to the lawsuit.
Ms. White did not resist police and would be considered at most a “passive resister” using the MDP Use of Force Framework, the lawsuit said.
Acceptable force with this type of subject would involve “low-level physical tactics to gain control and cooperation,” with techniques that could involve pain but would generally not inflect injury, the MPD policy cited in the suit states.
The newspaper’s analysis of the CCTV video showed Ms. White was struck by police 39 times in a little over four minutes.
At 4:09 p.m., the man said: “No, no, no, please! Please don’t beat her,” according to the video. Two minutes later, as police shouted at him to “move it, keep walking!” the man replied, “No! You’re going to kill her!”
At the time of the first lawsuit, Mr. McBride said a special prosecutor should be named to investigate the beating.
None of the officers allegedly involved in Ms. White’s case has been disciplined or faced criminal charges.
“That is somebody who’s not only acting with authority but is acting with license,” Mr. McBride said, referring to Mr. Bagshaw, then an MPD lieutenant.
“That is somebody who is acting because he has no fear that he’s going to be reprimanded for his actions. Do I think that’s criminal? There is no doubt in my mind that what that man did was criminal.”
That initial lawsuit identified seven police officers who allegedly took part in the beating.
She accepted a plea deal in August 2023 and was found guilty of the civil disorder charge.
She said the beatings on Jan. 6 gave her flashbacks to a decade of domestic abuse.
“I’ve had those with my ex, where I'd be awake doing something as simple as laundry, and all of a sudden, I’m there, being choked to death and beat or punched,” she said.
“This was the feeling of all that. It was like those blows, but now in the tunnel.”
