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US faces $4m lawsuit for seizing Elian -- 13 Seek Damages

A civil trial is under way in the case of more than a dozen people who say federal agents used excessive force during the raid to remove Elian Gonzalez from a Miami home. Maria Riera, the first to testify, said Monday that she clutched her chest and thought she was dying when a federal agent used tear gas. During the raid to take Elian, an Associated Press photographer snapped this shot of an INS agent pointing a high-power rifle at Donate Dalrymple as he hid in a closet with the boy. Riera is one of 13 people seeking up to $250,000 in damages on claims that federal agents used unnecessary excessive force during the April 2000 raid, leaving them injured and emotionally distraught. "I was stopped by a gentleman on my left approaching me with a shotgun," said Riera, who lived across the street from the home of Elian's uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez. Elian had lived in the home since shortly after he was rescued from the water off Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving Day 1999. Riera said a black-garbed agent wearing a mask ordered her to "stand back" or he would shoot, adding a word of profanity. She said she complied, but a second agent approached with a gas gun as she stood in her driveway and left her in a gray cloud of tear gas. A total of 108 people sued over the raid, but U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore limited the suit to people off the Gonzalez family property and beyond police barricades. Plaintiffs include Riera and her ex-husband Eduardo Rodriguez, a watchmaker who blames eye dryness and recent cataract surgery on the gas. [more] and [more]