The University of Virginia student who was filmed with blood pouring down his face as alcohol control agents wrestled him on the ground is set to sue the three officers involved in his arrest, the Guardian has learned.



Martese Johnson, 21, is expected to file a lawsuit in federal court in Virginia within weeks and could claim up to $5m in damages for his physical injuries and alleged violation of his civil and constitutional rights.

The African American undergraduate shot to national prominence after footage of his arrest close to the bucolic Charlottesville campus in March on suspicion of using a fake ID went viral, as he struggled and accused the white officers of the state’s Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) agency of racism.

The ABC announced on Monday that the officers “did not violate agency policy” in the arrest of Johnson and would return to active duty. This followed a review of their actions by the state police, which was ordered by Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe and was completed last month, although the resulting report has not been made public.

“If they do not give out the state police report, a lawsuit will be filed by the end of the month. If the report does come out it would take another couple of weeks after that’s assessed, but it will be filed in the next month or so,” a source familiar with Johnson’s case said.

Neither Johnson nor his lawyer, Daniel Watkins of nearby Richmond, would confirm whether the student intends to sue and would not comment further on the issue of civil action.

But in an interview, Johnson said the decision to keep the state police report under wraps was “worrisome” and he was unhappy that the agents involved in his arrest were returning to active duty. They were put on desk duty following the incident.

“I’m uncomfortable with the idea of these officers patrolling the area where I will have to live for another year. And if a person is slammed into the ground and has to get stitches – that an innocent person is treated in this way – there should be some repercussions or some punishment and changes to ensure it does not happen in the future,” he said.

Johnson spoke of his strengthening political ambitions in the wake of his arrest and what he considered the rise of a new civil rights movement across the US in the Black Lives Matter campaign – and revealed he has aspirations toward the White House.

He described Barack Obama as one of his idols and said he “definitely would not rule out” following in his footsteps with a run for the presidency one day.

“It’s in my dreams, it’s a very distant dream. I’m aiming to work to support my family directly out of college, but later on I could run for public office,” he said.

Martese Johnson: ‘That an innocent person is treated in this way – there should be some repercussions.’ Photograph: Martese Johnson

Criminal charges of obstructing justice and public drunkenness against Johnson were dropped in June and his ID turned out not to be fake.

During the incident, a member of the public took video footage on a mobile phone when Johnson was already on the ground, distraught and bleeding as the agents handcuffed him behind his back.

He was also shackled at the ankles and taken into a police van, later receiving stitches in hospital. News of his arrest prompted protests on campus, and Johnson and university president Teresa Sullivan appeared before a rally the following evening.

Johnson said he is still affected emotionally by the events.

“Waking up in the morning now and having a piece of my face where my hair will not grow any more and having scars is a painful thing to think about. But it serves as motivation to me,” he said.

He said he had been active in the causes of justice and racial equality since he was a child, but he was now extremely passionate about it, especially amid the protests and debate about race sweeping the country since the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a year ago.

Johnson spoke on the phone from New Orleans on Wednesday, where he had been addressing a national university fraternity event on social justice. He has also spent part of his summer interning in Washington DC at the Center for American Progress, the left-leaning thinktank, before he returns to Charlottesville in late August for the fourth and final year of his degree.

Virginia state lawmakers David Ramadan, a Republican, and Creigh Deeds and Marcus Simon, both Democrats, have called for the report by the state police into ABC’s actions in Johnson’s case to be made public.

“It does not do anyone any good to withhold this report. People are going to take a negative inference and think that the authorities have something to hide,” Simon said.

He intends to introduce a bill to the legislature later this year proposing to take away the law enforcement powers of the state Alcohol Beverage Control agency in relation to policing consumers, leaving that job to the state police, while restricting the agents’ role to regulating the sale of alcohol in licensed premises. Such attempts have been made unsuccessfully before.

“What’s different this time is the imagery – someone with blood running down their face. And it’s no mistake that this news was dropped in the middle of August, that maybe the story would go away, but I and some of my colleagues are taking it very seriously,” Simon said.

A lawsuit from Johnson would echo one from another UVA student two years ago.

In 2013, undergraduate Elizabeth Daly and two of her housemates were swarmed by six undercover ABC agents who thought they had bought a case of beer under age, when in fact they had bought cans of sparkling water.

One officer drew his gun as the agents surrounded Daly’s car, banging on it and shouting at the women. Daly was arrested and jailed overnight, but later sued the agents in federal court in Virginia and the case was settled by the state for $212,000.

Daly’s lawyer John Honey and Johnson’s lawyer Watkins have held discussions about the legal cases, both men confirmed.

Johnson said he was not angry with the individual agents and was taking the wider view, because growing up on the South Side of Chicago with seven brothers and a single mother, he saw frequent, casual police mistreatment of black men and youths on the streets, he said, but had also been saved from dangerous mobs by police officers there.