After the rally at the McEnery Convention Center, police directed participants to a single exit where, according to the lawsuit, hundreds of anti-Trump protesters were waiting. Twenty rallygoers said they were beaten or struck by objects, and one plaintiff said an officer told her the police had been instructed not to intervene.
A federal judge and the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
refused to dismiss the suit and said the rallygoers could try to prove that police had knowingly exposed them to danger. The settlement announced Monday does not provide for damages or any admission of wrongdoing, but a lawyer for the Trump supporters said the city has taken steps to improve police responses in the future.
“The San Jose Police Department has provided its officers with additional training and resources to ensure that such a situation is never repeated,” Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. She said Trump supporters had been “subjected to the type of political violence we normally only see in lawless, third-world countries,” while police simply “stood by and watched.”