Eight Occupy Oakland protesters have filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Oakland and Alameda County, saying their civil rights were violated when they were held in jail for hours but never charged with a crime.

The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, said 409 people were unlawfully arrested Jan. 28, 2012, after law-enforcement officers surrounded them outside the YMCA on Broadway. Among those taken into custody were protesters, reporters, medics, legal observers and bystanders who were corralled by officers who didn't give a dispersal order, the suit said.

Arrestees were held for as long as 85 hours, said the suit, filed by Berkeley attorney Yolanda Huang and Dan Siegel, a former adviser to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan. Huang also represents defendants who fought Oakland's gang injunctions.

The attorneys are asking a judge to give the lawsuit class-action status, which would broaden the number of plaintiffs to others arrested during the protest.

"Rather than cite and release, class members were incarcerated for long periods in overcrowded and inhumane conditions, including unheated or deliberately chilled cells, with limited seating, no sleeping facilities, sometimes standing room only, no toilet facilities, no feminine hygiene and no food, water or medical care," the suit said.

The mass arrest outside the YMCA happened hours after protesters tried to take over the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center several blocks away.

Among the plaintiffs is Sri Louise Coles, who suffered a golf-ball-size welt to her jaw from a bag of lead shot fired by Oakland police during a 2003 antiwar demonstration at the Port of Oakland. She sued the city, which settled for $210,000.

The suit seeks unspecified damages and an order sealing and destroying records associated with the arrests, including fingerprints, photos and biological samples.

Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan has said he is seeking to fire two officers, demote a third and suspend 15 others for their treatment of protesters at unspecified Occupy demonstrations. He has also pledged that his officers will engage in "constitutional policing."

"We are seeking to have OPD do what they've already promised to do, which is basic, good policing," Huang said. "These mass arrests must stop."

The defendants, which include the city of Oakland, Jordan, Alameda County, Sheriff Greg Ahern and other law-enforcement officials, haven't responded to the suit in court.