Amara Harris appears at a news conference announcing her federal civil rights lawsuit, alleging she was issued a ticket for theft of AirPods without justification at a high school in Illinois. (Screenshot from WGN News/YouTube)
An Illinois woman who spent years fighting a bogus $100 ticket after a school resource officer wrongfully accused her of stealing a fellow student’s AirPods when she was in high school has filed a $20 million federal civil rights lawsuit in the case.
Amara Harris, now 21, alleges in her lawsuit that school resource officers ticketed her without justification on Dec. 4, 2019, after she mistakenly took the devices she thought were hers and took them to the dean’s office at Naperville High School west of Chicago when she was a junior.
“They were wrong, and they have to face consequences and be held accountable for what they did and for dragging this on,” Harris told ProPublica, which first documented her story in a 2022 series with the Chicago Tribune called “The Price Kids Pay” that found Black students were twice as likely as their white peers to be issued tickets at school.
Harris’ lawsuit alleges civil rights violations, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It names the city of Naperville, a school resource officer and a supervisor.
In a statement emailed to Law&Crime, Naperville City Attorney Mike DiSanto said the city believes the allegations are without merit and they are prepared to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.
“The police officers involved in this matter relied upon independent eyewitness statements from school officials and students in issuing the theft citation to Ms. Harris,” the statement said. “Further, prior to trial, the court denied Ms. Harris’ motion to suppress evidence, motion to dismiss, and motion for a directed verdict which further supports the evidentiary basis for issuing the citation. The fact that the jury acquitted Ms. Harris does not negate the factual basis for the actions of the city and its officers. The Naperville Police Department is an accredited law enforcement agency that provides significant training to its staff and maintains the highest standards of integrity which the city maintains were met in this matter.”
Court documents said Naperville officials refused to dismiss the “unsubstantiated and untrue charges and repeatedly tried to convince Miss Harris to merely pay the ticket, even though there was no evidence of theft by Miss Harris.”
The lawsuit alleges that the school resource officer admitted in court he issued the citation “without any proof to support the charge of theft having occurred, and based on his anger toward Plaintiff Harris’s mother, because she would not speak with him concerning the allegation of theft.”
A jury ultimately found Harris not liable for the alleged theft after a two-day trial.
The lawsuit alleges the supervisor failed to train and supervise school resource officers in constitutional policing, enabling a “custom of illegal ticketing of students” at the school. It alleges the Police Department has a history of improperly issuing tickets to students for minor infractions and disproportionately targets students of color and other protected groups.
“This is the courage of a young woman who said, ‘I will not pay a fine because I did nothing wrong,”” said S. Todd Yeary, an attorney for Harris, in a news conference.
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