Icelandic woman who says she barely understands English yet considers herself an anti-Wu leader sues over being charged for incident outside the mayor's house back in the screaming days of 2022

Update: Case sent back to state court, where Baldursdottir voluntarily dismissed it on Sept. 25, 2023.

A woman who faces a misdemeanor larceny charge over the body-worn camera she says an officer managed to drop while pushing her out of the way of Mayor Wu's car outside the mayor's Roslindale home during an early morning Covid-19 screaming protest has sued the city, the mayor, all the judges who sit at West Roxbury municipal court and a clerk magistrate there for violating her civil rights.

Sigridur Baldursdottir says her arrest and subsequent and frequently delayed court hearings - due to an inability to supply her with an Icelandic translator - are not just violations of her rights under the First, Fourth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, but are part of a conspiracy against her, one that has caused her "severe emotional distress" on top of her existing PTSD.

Baldursdottir originally filed her suit in Suffolk Superior Court in March, but as it typically does, the city today petitioned to have the case "removed" to federal court because of the constitutional issues the suit raises. In her state filing, Baldursdottir said she was seeking $3.5 million in damages.

Baldursdottir's complaint starts by saying she is an Icelandic citizen with permanent residency here - she came to pursue her interest in art - and that, despite her inability to understand English well, she became a "prominent leader of a local civil rights movement that is often critical of Defendant Wu's political policies." The complaint notes that she often posed as a "gadlfy" at appearances by the mayor, including an Evacuation Day commemoration on March 17, 2022, at which a Boston Herald photographer caught her standing "deadpan" behind Wu while holding a sign that read: "Evacuate Wu."

According to her complaint, she was standing with other protesters outside Wu's Roslindale house on the morning of Feb. 3 when a BPD officer pushed her out of the way to clear the street for the mayor's vehicle to head out. In pushing her, the complaint alleges, the officer managed to disengage his body-worn camera and it fell to the ground.

Baldursdottir says she heard something fall to the ground, saw the device laying there and, believing it belonged to a protesting off-duty police officer whose SUV's rear hatch was open for ready access to an "overflowing" supply of noise-making equipment, put it in the vehicle. The officer returned to her vehicle, realized what the device was and "returned it to the BPD officer who had lost it."

The complaint says that after an on-duty officer wrote a citation, she has faced a series of sinister and constantly postponed hearings in West Roxbury court because everytime she and her lawyer appear, after requesting an Icelandic interpreter, none shows up. She said that on March 23 of this year, her lawyer called the clerk's office to make sure a translator would actually be present at a hearing scheduled the next day, only to be told he should know by now that no translator would ever come.

This is a particular hardship for a woman who still mostly speaks in Icelandic in her daily life, the complaint continues.

To Ms. Baldursdottir, the West Roxbury Court proceedings against her have been largely a "babble of voices." To Ms. Baldursdottir's counsel, it has been a challenge to provide her with meaningful consultation in those proceedings.

Even worse:

Ms. Bauldrsdottir's post-traumatic stress disorder has been aggravated severely as a result of the events described in this Complaint. She is constantly concerned about being placed in prison, about being deported back to Iceland, and about her ability to earn a living if she is convicted for larceny. The mix of Kafkaesque and Beckettian existential uncertainty created by court hearing after court hearing being continued in order to wait for an Icelandic interpreter, who never turns up, is severely psychologically tortous for Ms. Baldursdottir, who comes from a nation that deeply values free speech and due process. Over the entire year that the unlawful process against her has dragged on in West Roxbury Court so far, Ms. Baldursdottir has suffered extreme daily anguish and increasingly deteriorating mental health.