Court Support for Kayla Moore Family

APPEAL BY FAMILY OF KAYLA MOORE IN CASE AGAINST BERKELEY COPS ALLOWED TO PROCEED

Arguments will be heard by judges for the 9t​ h​ Circuit Courts of Appeals on January 9, 2020, and a coalition of organizations supporting the family of Kayla Moore is calling on the community to show up in court and demand that a jury be allowed to hear this case in which a Berkeley woman died at the hands of Berkeley Police.

On February 12, 2013, Kayla Moore was in her apartment with her caretaker when BPD officers knocked on her door to do a “wellness check” because a friend had called police saying that he was concerned about her behavior. Within minutes, Kayla was face down and suffocating under a pile of six officers. Kayla died just after midnight. In the six years since she was killed, no officer has been disciplined and no policy has been changed. There is no reason to believe that this will be the last time that a person with a mental health disability suffers from inappropriate and disproportionate Berkeley police response.

The Moore family sued the BPD officers in Federal court in 2013. In March 2018, Judge Charles Breyer threw out the entire case, denying the family a trial before a jury. The Moore family then filed an appeal, which has only now made its way to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The family and legal counsel are confident that the conflicting evidence in the case—including the cops changing their stories, and experts disagreeing about the cause of death—necessitates that the case go before a jury.