The Law Offices of Joel H. Siegal has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the San Francisco Police Department and the City and County of San Francisco after uniformed and plainclothes police officers arrested and detained at gunpoint 19 innocent African-American men who were recording and performing a music video in the Bayview-Hunters Point section of San Francisco. The suit alleges that without probable cause or a search warrant, SFPD officers subjected each of the 19 African-American men to unreasonable search and seizure and humiliation at gunpoint. The 19 men were told to get on their knees and were then handcuffed, an act reminiscent of the most vile chapters of US history when government policies allowed whites to imprison any black person who failed to produce freedom papers or a certificate of freedom because it was assumed that African Americans were subhuman chattel, not fit to enjoy any civil rights.