BATON ROUGE (AP) - A federal appeals court says a Louisiana police officer injured during protests over the 2016 killing of a black man can sue a Black Lives Matter organizer on the grounds he acted negligently by leading people to block a highway.

  

The Advocate reports the Baton Rouge officer had sued DeRay Mckesson and others who gathered as part of the Black Lives Matter movement after police fatally shot Alton Sterling. A federal judge threw out the lawsuit, citing First Amendment rights and noting Black Lives Matter was too loosely organized to sue.

  

But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the officer should be able to argue that Mckesson didn't exercise reasonable care in leading protesters onto the highway, setting up a police confrontation in which the officer was injured by a thrown concrete block.