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Caught Our Eye

New Dem staffer holds police accountable for actions

Posted by Nate Hoffman on May 5, 2016

A new staffer sued the nation's second largest police force for excessive force for false arrest.

Rayven Vinison, who recently joined the staff of outgoing Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) as a staff assistant, sued 12 members of the Los Angeles Police Department, the City of Los Angeles and the University of Southern California in 2014 after a police raid at a college party she was attending. Students allege that LAPD officers arrived at the scene in riot gear to break up a mostly African-American house party at USC while a mostly Caucasian party across the street was allowed to continue and were only given verbal warnings about noise levels.

The six arrestees claimed that they registered their party with USC's Department of Public Safety ahead of time and checked IDs of guests at the door as part of the hosting requirements. Allegedly, the mostly Caucasian party did not meet either requirement.

The Cockeysville, Md.-native has other criminal justice experience. Prior to joining the Senate, she interned and worked for the Baltimore (Md.) Police Department as a best practices researcher. Baltimore's law enforcement has been under scrutiny since the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.