SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge said he was leaning towards granting summary judgment to the U.S Postal Service in a squabble with an Oakland, California small business owner who claims his parcels containing pro-Black face masks and other apparel were illegally seized and opened during the height of police brutality protests in 2020.
Rene Quinonez, owner of Movement Ink, a justice-based screen printing company, said in his 2022 complaint that following the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020, political organizers began to hire him to print as many face masks with political messages — such as “Stop killing Black people” — as possible to give to demonstrators.
Quinonez says that his deliveries were intercepted by law enforcement without further details. He filed a Freedom of Information Act request and learned that officers thought the packages contained drugs and had searched them. Quinonez said he lost out on future economic benefits because of the seizure, as many of his partners backed out of deals and became suspicious of his company after the packages were seized.
The Postal Service argued that there was no proof that the packages were opened. At a hearing Wednesday afternoon, Senior U.S. District Judge William Orrick, a Barack Obama appointee, agreed, and heavily implied he was going to grant summary judgment to the Postal Service.
