Supreme Court sided with the Black Lives Matter movement

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with the Black Lives Matter movement in throwing out a decision that allowed one of its organizers to be sued by a cop who was injured at a 2016 protest.

In an unsigned opinion, the justices sent the case back to the lower courts to further review Louisiana law, USA Today reported.

The officer wanted to hold McKesson legally accountable since he organized the event where the incident took place.

A federal appellate court previously granted the officer permission to continue with the suit because “a violent confrontation with a police officer was a foreseeable effect of negligently directing a protest.”

As Emerson Sykes, a staff attorney with the ACLU, recently told GEN: “The case has the potential to have an amazing chilling effect. If any organization can be held liable for actions of totally unconnected people, no one would organize a protest.”

"The Supreme Court has long recognized that peaceful protesters cannot be held liable for the unintended, unlawful actions of others," said American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Director David Cole, who is representing McKesson.

"If the law had allowed anyone to sue leaders of social justice movements over the violent actions of others, there would have been no Civil Rights Movement. The lower court's ruling is a threat to the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans."

KEY BACKGROUND

Mckesson organized the event to protest the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, a Black man, by at least one officer from the Baton Rouge Police Department.

The protesters gathered on the highway outside the police department, allegedly at Mckesson’s direction, according to the Supreme Court opinion.

Police officers started to make arrests and an unnamed protester threw a “piece of concrete or similar rock-like object” that hit the officer in the face causing brain trauma, according to the opinion.

If Mckesson were found to be personally liable for violence that occurred at a protest he organized, it could make activists reluctant to organize future protests despite their First Amendment right.