An appeals court on Friday said Donald Trump supporters can move ahead with a lawsuit claiming San Jose police forced them to walk from a 2016 campaign rally into a mob of violent protesters who assaulted them while the officers stood by.

The city had argued the case should be dismissed because the officers enjoy “qualified immunity” from liability in doing their jobs.

But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court ruling last year in favor of more than a dozen rally attendees who alleged the officers violated their civil rights.

“We find the officers violated clearly established rights and are not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage of the proceedings,” said the opinion by Judge Dorothy W. Nelson, joined by judges Andrew J. Kleinfeld and William A. Fletcher.

City Attorney Rick Doyle said “we’re reviewing the decision” and will discuss next steps with the City Council. Those could include asking a full 11-member panel of the 9th Circuit to review the decision or appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.

The lawsuit, Hernandez v. San Jose, involved a June 2, 2016 campaign rally for then-candidate Trump at San Jose’s McEnery Convention Center.

“The attendees alleged sufficiently that the officers increased the danger to them by shepherding them into a crowd of violent protesters and that the officers acted with deliberate indifference to that danger,” the 9th Circuit opinion said. “The district court therefore correctly denied the officers qualified immunity.”

The suit initially named Mayor Sam Liccardo and Police Chief Eddie Garcia as defendants. But U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh last year dismissed claims against Garcia. The attendees dropped claims against Liccardo in November 2016.

The suit proceeds against seven named city officers. But the 9th Circuit opinion did not uphold liability claims against the city itself that were based on the assertion that the police chief, in comments supporting his officers after the rally, effectively ratified their allegedly unconstitutional conduct.

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“We decline to exercise jurisdiction over it,” the court opinion said, because “the city’s liability is not inextricably intertwined with the officers’ liability” and “the qualified immunity issue.”