Lawsuit: UNC police crossed line seizing student’s phone after Pro-Palestinian protest
When three UNC-Chapel Hill police officers knocked on Laura Saavedra Forero’s dorm room demanding her phone days after she joined a campus protest, she immediately called her attorney.
The officers told Saavedra Forero that they had evidence she had taken photos or videos of people vandalizing the Naval ROTC Armory during the protest, a lawsuit says. The protest was organized to advocate for Palestinian people in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war.
On speaker phone, the lawyer told the 21-year-old senior, a well-known campus activist who uses a wheelchair, to turn the phone off and hand it to officers, according to a federal lawsuit.
As Saavedra Forero started to turn off her phone, two officers tackled her, claiming she was “destroying evidence,” the lawsuit says. They knocked her out of her wheelchair to the floor in her dorm hallway, says the lawsuit, filed last year against UNC Police and three individual campus police officers.
That lawsuit contends campus police misrepresented evidence they had used to convince a judge to sign off on a warrant that let them seize her phone. That violated Saavedra Forero’s constitutional right to unreasonable searches and resulted in officers using excessive force to take her phone, claims the lawsuit.
“No reasonable officer would think it was necessary for three grown men to tackle and throw a disabled individual from her wheelchair to retrieve a phone from her possession,” the lawsuit says.
Saavedra Forero initially filed the lawsuit in 2024, which her attorneys updated on Feb. 25. UNC attorneys have asked for the case to be dismissed.
UNC describes situation differently
A UNC spokesperson said campus officials are not able to talk about ongoing legal proceedings. But in court documents, lawyers defending UNC said the officers had reason to be there and serve the search warrant.
Two UNC police investigators and a uniformed officer were seeking evidence related to the vandalism of 10 campus buildings, including the ROTC Naval Armory building, damaged during the Sept. 19 protest, UNC officials have said.
Saavedra Forero helped organize the protest and was seen taking photos during the protest, one of their court filings says.
That led a campus police investigator “to the reasonable conclusion that plaintiff’s phone may contain photos, videos, messages, or communication related to the vandalism,” UNC attorneys wrote in a brief arguing the student’s lawsuit should be dismissed.
The incident wasn’t the first time that UNC officials used search warrants to get more information on pro-Palestinian student protests since the war between Israel and Hamas began in 2023..
In May, police obtained a warrant to review a private Instagram account belonging to the UNC Chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine following a commencement day protest on campus, The News & Observer reported.
Obtaining a warrant to take Saavedra Forero’s phone is especially concerning for people who participate in protests, said Jaelyn Miller, a staff attorney for Emancipate NC representing Saavedra Forero.
Police aren’t accusing her of a crime, but contend they should be able to search Saavedra Forero’s social media accounts, emails, and internet history because she was seen taking photos at a protest.
No one has been charged with the misdemeanor crime of vandalizing the buildings, a UNC spokesperson said in a Feb. 28 email.
UNC students walk out of class on Sept. 19, 2024
On Sept. 19, Saavedra Forero participated in a walkout on campus, along with hundreds of others, the lawsuit says. The event was promoted by the UNC SJP, and UNC officials contend only about 150 demonstrators participated.
The walkout occurred around 12:40 p.m., and by 1:30 p.m., demonstrators made their way to the front doors of the Naval ROTC Armory, the search warrant says.
“Unknown demonstrators” approached the armory and spray painted graffiti on its signs, doors and columns, it says. UNC Police responded when a fight was reported at the ROTC flagpole between a bystander and a group of demonstrators who tried to remove the U.S. flag, it says.
The search warrant says community organizers and people who police knew to be affiliated with UNC SJP, including Saavedra Forero, “guided demonstrators” into campus buildings that were damaged. Saavedra Forero was also seen with the organizers before the event, it says.
It is unclear how police got a video of Saavedra Forero, but in it, the search warrant says she appeared to be using her phone to video or document the events.
Saavedra Forero’s lawsuit says police purposely misconstrued the evidence to indicate she participated in and recorded the vandalism with her phone. The only evidence police presented in the warrant application were two photos, without a date or timestamp, of Saavedra Forero at the protest holding her phone.
Saavedra Forero says she was filming the protest “on a public sidewalk several dozen feet from the Naval ROTC Armory doors,” as protesters and construction work obstructed her view, according to the lawsuit.
One photo shows Saavedra Forero “filming the individual who is filming her and her phone is angled away” from the ROTC, it says.
In an affidavit, Saavedra Forero denied participating in or taking photos or videos of the vandalism. Her lawsuit questions why the person who gave the video to UNC Police wouldn’t have also made a video of the vandalism.
Excessive police force?
Saavedra Forero’s lawsuit says the officers violated her rights by not accommodating her disability when they served the warrant. It also accused police of violating her rights by subjecting her to an unreasonable search and excessive force, the lawsuit states.
UNC officials denied they violated the student’s rights or that officers used excessive force while taking the phone.
If Saavedra Forero turned off the phone, it “would have made evidence nearly impossible to obtain, ” UNC Police Chief Brian James said in a statement sent out after officers served the search warrant, according to documents in the lawsuit.
“One officer reached for the phone to prevent the destruction of evidence, a struggle ensued and the student fell down,” James said.
The officers offered to get medical help, but she refused, James said.
Officers charged Saavedra Forero after the encounter with obstructing justice, a misdemeanor, accusing her of attempting to destroy evidence.
The charge is still pending, but a proffered plea deal will dismiss the charges if Saavedra Forero completes community service and doesn’t accrue more charges through May, Miller said.
An active campus protester
Since Saavedra Forero enrolled at UNC, she has been vocal about a number of issues, from improving access to school facilities for students in wheelchairs to participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
This is the second time that UNC Police knocked Saavedra Forero from her wheelchair, the lawsuit claims. At a protest on April 30, 2024, Saavedra Forero and her wheelchair were knocked to the ground and pinned under temporary fencing when protesters clashed with police.
On May 8, 2024 she was charged with impeding traffic and resisting arrest at another pro-Palestinian demonstration on campus. Court records show she received a conditional discharge in that case in November.
Saavedra Forero has said in an interview with The Daily Tar Heel student newspaper that the Morehead-Cain Trustees terminated her full scholarship. She provided the newspaper with emails, video and audio recordings that suggested the decision was in response to her activism.
The scholarship president also met with her over a year ago to discuss a political Instagram post, the newspaper reported.
In addition to seeking monetary damages after police violated her constitutional rights, Saavedra Forero is also asking for the courts to prevent police from reviewing the information they collected from her phone.
This story was originally published March 5, 2025 at 10:41 AM.
