FOR MOST POLICE OFFICERS, pepper spray is standard equipment, a tool lauded in the law enforcement world as an alternative to lethal force. But a case in Northampton is raising questions about whether pepper spray is also susceptible to misuse.
Eric Matlock staged a protest outside Northampton City Hall in 2017, blocking the entrance to the building. Police were called, and Matlock was pepper sprayed; arrested; and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and assault on a police officer.
A jury acquitted Matlock of all of the charges after his attorney argued that his client did not know he was being arrested when he hit a police officer after being pepper sprayed. One bystander testified she heard Matlock say he couldn’t breathe, and called the scene “excessive, disturbing” and that it “seemed unnecessary.”
The Northampton Police Department conducted an internal review and determined the responding officers’ use of force was within department policy, but Matlock is now seeking $700,000 in damages from the city and several officials. Through an attorney, Dana Goldblatt, Matlock is accusing the city’s police department of targeting African-Americans.
“Northampton has a reputation for targeting people of color for aggressive policing and then lying about it,” wrote Matlock in a letter to the city.
Goldblatt said he will seek a jury trial, and admissions of wrongdoing of each of the named defendants, including Police Chief Jody Kasper and five officers.
The letter and potential litigation are in response to “the defendants’ physical assault on the plaintiff, violations of his civil rights, and retaliation for his exercise of protected speech and expressive conduct.”
This is not the first time the liberal western Massachusetts city has found itself in a mess over racism and policing. In 2016, the city agreed to pay Jonas Correia $52,500 in an out-of-court settlement after he was arrested, put on the ground, and maced outside of a bar in 2013. Criminal charges against Correia were eventually dropped.
Police chief Kasper, new back in 2016 at the time of the Correia settelement, said that officers would begin taking trainings covering race and ethnicity, implicit bias, and systemic racism. That was a year before Matlock’s incident.
