According to the suit, many of the counterprotesters were not students but community members, including a Beverly Hills jeweler, a Laguna Beach attorney and a Los Angeles teenager, who are named as defendants. Many could not be reached or did not respond to requests for comment. One who responded, David Merabi, an attorney in Los Angeles, said he is 70 and has back problems and was not at the encampment.
“Those were adult, grown members of the community,” Thomas B. Harvey, the lead lawyer in the case, said on Thursday, adding, “I think it’s a totally different understanding of who’s in that attack.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations California is also providing legal assistance on the case.
Less than 12 hours after the attack, the police disbanded the encampment, and in doing so, according to the lawsuit, subjected protesters to a new round of violence, including being shot at with rubber bullets, beaten with batons, wrestled to the ground and restrained. The police raid resulted in more than 200 arrests.
One of the plaintiffs, Thistle Boosinger, was beaten by the counterprotesters with a metal rod that shattered her hand and severed a nerve, hurting her career as a drummer, according to the complaint.
Jakob Johnson, who graduated from U.C.L.A. last year, was shot in the chest with a rubber bullet by a police officer standing less than 10 feet away, the complaint says. He suffered heart and lung injuries and depression, and had to withdraw from law school, the complaint says.