by Jodi S. Cohen and Jennifer Smith Richards

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Amara Harris, the young Black woman from suburban Chicago who won a yearslong fight against a police ticket that accused her of stealing a classmate’s AirPods, took her fight to court again Tuesday.

This time, she was the plaintiff, not the defendant.

Harris’ attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging civil rights violations, including racial discrimination and malicious prosecution. When she was a high school junior in 2019, a city police officer based at the school, using information gathered by school deans, ticketed her for violating a municipal ordinance against theft. Harris has always said she did not steal the AirPods but picked them up by mistake, thinking they were her own.

The city refused to drop the ticket, which could have cost Harris up to $500, despite a lack of evidence, the lawsuit alleges. Harris maintained her innocence for nearly four years and took the ordinance violation case to a rare jury trial in August. A jury found Harris not liable after a three-day trial.

The lawsuit names as defendants Naperville — Illinois’ fourth-largest city, about 30 miles west of Chicago — as well as former school-based police officer Juan Leon and his then-supervisor, Jonathan Pope. Leon, who issued the ticket, acknowledged during the trial he had no direct evidence that Harris had stolen the........

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