A 23-year-old African American man who says he was doing nothing more than bicycling home from his job at New Seasons Market when he was stopped, knocked to the ground, handcuffed and arrested by a Portland police officer has filed a $475,000 lawsuit against the city.

Police had been scouring the neighborhood for a black man suspected in a shooting when they came upon Anthony James Allen Jr., said his attorney, Ashlee Albies.

Police refused to answer Allen's questions about why they were stopping him, she said Thursday.

“You need reasonable suspicion,” Albies said. “It can’t just be because ‘I feel like it.’ It can’t just be because ‘You’re black and I want you to do what I want you to do.’ ... If that was me on my bike ... there’s no way they would have done that. I’m a white woman.”

Allen ended up with bloody shins and a sore neck and shoulders, she said.

Police spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson declined comment. The city attorney’s office declined comment, saying it doesn’t talk about pending litigation.

According to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Allen was pedaling home with a couple of bags of groceries about 11:30 p.m. on May 18, 2015, when he saw the flashing lights of police cars and a police-line perimeter around his Northeast Portland neighborhood. He stopped and spoke to officers, who told him there had been a shooting, the area wasn’t safe and that he should head straight home, according to the suit.

Allen was trying to do just that when, a few doors away from his home at Northeast 25th Avenue and Sumner Street, police officer Colby Marrs “appeared suddenly out of the shadows” and yelled at him to stop, the suit says.

Allen explained that he was headed home from work and pointed to his home a few doors down, the suit states. That’s when Marrs responded, “Not if I have questions for you,” and Allen explained that he’d just spoken to two officers who told him to go home, according to the suit.

Marrs told Allen that if “an officer tells you to stop, you (expletive) stop,” the suit says.

“Allen, put off by this disrespectful behavior he did not deserve, said that he did not have anything to say to Marrs, and continued on his way home," the suit says.

Marrs then grabbed Allen’s shoulder, put his hand on his gun and called for backup, the suit says. Marrs also ordered Allen -- who was in the street -- to the curb, the suit states.

Allen told the officer that he would comply and started moving to the curb when Marrs took Allen to the ground and pressed his knee into Allen’s neck and shoulders as he handcuffed him, the suit states. The neighborhood perimeter had been lifted by then, the suit says.

Police later dumped out the contents of his backpack, including the Bible he carried with him, according to the suit.

Allen was released from custody about four hours later.

The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office pursued a misdemeanor charge of interfering with a police officer on the theory that Allen had refused to obey a lawful order. In August 2015, a six-person jury acquitted him.

Oregon court records show that Allen doesn’t have a criminal history, his attorney said it shouldn’t matter if he did. Albies said the city should better train its officers to avoid racial profiling. She also said officers need to learn how to better de-escalate situations and work toward rebuilding their relationship with minority communities.

Read the lawsuit here.



-- Aimee Green