(BPRW) Black Vet Seeking Justice in $10 Million Lawsuit Against Los Angeles Police Department and City of Los Angeles

(Black PR Wire) LOS ANGELES – As the nation celebrates Rev.-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the renowned “Drum Major for Justice,” a Black veteran in Los Angeles is calling for a criminal investigation into practices of local and federal agencies.

Slade Douglas, a graduate from Florida State University and U.S. Army vet, is seeking justice in his $10 million lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department and the city of Los Angeles.

In a letter to more than two dozen congressmen, various congressional committees, several federal officials, and the President of the United States, Douglas wrote that “it’s inherently dangerous to be black in America.”

Douglas, 47, has secured documents confirming several critical facts, justifying the need for further investigation.

• He was targeted for a wellness check, citing Douglas as a suicide threat, because he filed discrimination complaint against the Veterans Administration.
• Douglas has confirmed that the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) intentionally deleted phone calls from August 27, 2019, which contained false suicide allegations against him.
• Douglas cites that California has cracked down on discriminatory emergency calls, making it a crime to try to intimidate a person based on their race with a false 911 report. 
• The VA has a pattern of behavior of retaliating against veterans who have filed complaints against the agency.
• His rights were violated from the moment the police handcuffed him and took him to the hospital. In his letter, Douglas points out that he was unlawfully handcuffed, taken to a hospital under false pretenses, “where he was forcibly injected with unknown drugs and physically tortured. LAPD instructed hospital staff to place a foreign object in Slade’s penis and conduct other invasive procedures and testing against his will.” Slade asserts that, “He literally had no rights and was treated like a slave. Slade was released later that evening without any charges being filed.

Douglas’ suit is set to go to trial in March, after a U.S. District Court judge ordered the release of police camera footage of the day of his arrest, his ride in the ambulance with Wheeler and the paramedics to Good Samaritan Hospital, and related conversations.

“As a Black man, I have a right to object to discriminatory treatment without being labeled as a threat or threatening,” Slade says. “There are many Veterans whose quality of life has forever been changed because of their service to the country. Many of them have not been treated with dignity, and many of them no longer have the ability to advocate for themselves. A part of this journey is me standing in the gap to provide a voice and ensure necessary reform within the government, so this type of incident never happens again.”

Douglas is available for interviews and has unedited police bodycam videos and documents related to the case.