Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit alleging Colorado Springs police officers violated the First and Fourth amendments of the U.S. Constitution when officers obtained “unlawful,” “dragnet” search warrants for activists who participated in a housing rights march in Colorado Springs in the summer of 2021.

The lawsuit accuses police officers of targeting leaders with the nonprofit activist group Chinook Center for arrest during a housing rights march in downtown Colorado Springs on July 31, 2021, then obtaining “unjustified” search warrants to access the nonprofit’s private chats on Facebook Messenger.

Case No. 1:23-cv-01951

The suit also alleges police later arrested Colorado Springs resident and activist Jacqueline “Jax” Armendariz Unzueta after she dropped a bicycle she was riding in front of another police officer, who was not injured, during the march. Police then seized her cellphones, laptops and an external hard drive “without any justification or probable cause that they contained specific, particularized evidence of the alleged bike-dropping crime,” and “enlisted the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to unlawfully seize, search and copy all of Armendariz Unzueta’s personal devices,” the lawsuit states.

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The city, FBI and Colorado Springs officers Daniel Summey, B.K. Steckler, Jason S. Otero and Roy A. Ditzler are named as defendants.

The Colorado Springs Police Department and FBI both declined to comment on the case Tuesday, citing the pending litigation. 

“This case is really about … requiring the (Colorado Springs Police Department) to honor folks’ constitutional rights and not use these broad dragnet warrants to invade people’s privacy,” ACLU of Colorado senior staff attorney Sara Neel said.

In their complaint, plaintiffs Armendariz Unzueta and the Chinook Center allege Colorado Springs police had been surveilling the Chinook Center since the summer of 2020 – after community protests took place in town over the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the August 2019 police killing of 19-year-old De’Von Bailey in Colorado Springs, both Black men – to “gather information about the social justice activist community” in the city.

When police learned of the organization’s planned housing march on July 31, 2021, plaintiffs allege police “decided that, if given the opportunity at the march, they would arrest Chinook Center leaders and other activists … because of their general animus toward Chinook and other activists CSPD perceived to be associated with past demonstrations …”

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According to the lawsuit, police arrested protesters who at times marched on the street, even after they complied with police requests not to do so. As Armendariz Unzueta watched police arrest Chinook Center co-founder Shaun Walls, she dropped her bike and it landed between her and a Colorado Springs police officer running toward her in riot gear, the lawsuit states. The officer was “untouched” by the bicycle and “continued toward the protesters,” according to the suit. Police later arrested Armendariz Unzueta and charged her with felony attempted aggravated assault on a police officer, the lawsuit states.

After the march, Colorado Springs police sought and obtained search warrants for “all Facebook Messenger chats tied” to the Chinook Center’s Facebook page without establishing probable cause, the suit alleges. 

Those chats were “private, confidential and not available to the public,” providing “an opportunity for political organizing, debate and advocacy among Chinook members,” the lawsuit states.

Plaintiffs claim the Police Department’s only reason for seeking the warrants was that the Chinook Center had organized the housing march and its Facebook page “contained details” about it, but “there was no indication as to why the private messages would contain relevant evidence beyond the police’s assertion that they could gain ‘material evidence in this case.'” 

The police affidavit for the warrants did not identify a specific crime or person under investigation, the lawsuit alleges.

When police later arrested Armendariz Unzueta at her home, they seized clothing there they determined she was wearing at the march, as well as her bicycle and a variety of personal and work-related devices: three cellphones, two computers and an external hard drive. Officers then obtained a warrant to search the devices for personal data in the period between June 5, 2021, and Aug. 7, 2021, “determined to be relevant to this investigation,” the suit states.

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Police wanted to search the devices “not for further proof (Armendariz Unzueta) was the protestor who dropped her bike, but for information about the Chinook Center, its activities and her own political expression,” the lawsuit claims.

Armendariz Unzueta told The Gazette Tuesday she helped bring the litigation against the city and FBI to protect the community.

“I’m a person of integrity and serving my community is what makes me feel like I’m rich. … The false allegations by the police took that away from me,” she said. “This is one of the most important days of my life and what I hope comes out of this moment is some material change for my community, to make it better. … That includes holding police accountable when they do things that violate our rights.”

Plaintiffs seek an unspecified amount of damages, costs and attorney’s fees. Armendariz Unzueta additionally seeks to have the copies of her digital devices and the information extracted from them returned or deleted by the city and the FBI.

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