One of the protesters arrested outside a Dole Institute of Politics dedication event plans to sue the city for what he claims was excessive use of force by police.

Leo C. Jalipa, 22, Columbia, Mo., alleges officers threw him to the ground and punched him as he and other protesters tried to cross the road July 21 outside a $500-a-plate dinner at the Lawrence Holidome, 200 McDonald Drive. Jalipa later was charged with pushing Police Chief Ron Olin with a plastic shield, but he was found not guilty after a jury trial in Douglas County District Court.

“I just thought they were really brutal,” Jalipa said Wednesday. “I felt like I was in a fight — like someone was in a fistfight with me, but I wasn’t really fighting back.”

Late last month Jalipa’s attorney filed a one-page document in District Court saying he plans to file a lawsuit against the city. Under state law, people planning to sue a city must give proper notice.

Assistant City Manager David Corliss declined comment on the case, except to say, “We have received his document.”

Jalipa was one of four people charged in District Court after the protest. One entered a diversion agreement for a charge of criminal use of a weapon.

After juries acquitted Jalipa and another man of battering police, Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney’s office dropped charges against the fourth protester.

In a trial late last year in Lawrence Municipal Court, a judge cleared six protesters of four of the five charges against them, including unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct. They were convicted of walking in the roadway, a traffic infraction.

After that trial, a seventh protester charged in Municipal Court entered a plea to walking in the roadway and had the other four charges dropped, officials said.

Another Dole protester acquitted (2-19-04) Judge grants delay for Dole protesters (8-8-03) Dole gala protesters cite police brutality (7-23-04) More stories on the Dole Institute of Politics Dole Institute of Politics Web site