Mistaken identity of citizen. Police thought he had stolen a car and approached Plaintiff in a Walmart parking lot, ordering him to get on the ground. As Plaintiff was complying with the commands, Jesus Sanchez tackled the Plaintiff, causing a low back injury, necessitating a two level lumbar fusion.
Taser case; plaintiff was Type I diabetic and tased 3x in 26 seconds in dart mode. He was handcuffed and taken to the hospital for drug testing. The total detention less than 2 hours. Less than $300.00 in out of pocket medical.
Vasquez approaches Sgt. Faris inquiring why he’s got a friend kneeling on the sidewalk with others. Faris does not answer, tells him to go home. Vasquez is at home, he told Faris. Faris became angry and attacked Vasquez, knocking him to the sidewalk and battering him with a baton. Contreras hears the screaming and walked up yelling at Faris to stop hitting his cousin when Hines came from behind and smashed Contreras with a baton, fracturing his elbow, knocked him down and admitted 17 more blows justified by the claim Contreras was non compliant with verbal orders.
Excessive force involving one plaintiff and two officers. Strikes to the head with hard object while handcuffed. Minimal physical injuries. Witness saw incident from window. Officers denied completely. Original jury award of $5,000 compensatory and $100,000 punitive. Reduced to $50,000 compensatory following post trial motion to reduce punitive award.
Damages were a night in jail and subjected to false accusations and verbal abuses. Case tried in 2010 with three more plaintiffs who had been beaten up by officers. Defense verdict, new trial motion as to father and daughter granted 5 years (no typo) later. Incident took place 6/11/04 in Watts, South Central LA. Def Bright died in the meantime. Young and a lying K-9 officer (Stambaugh) who attempted to demonize the plaintiffs was caught by a video clip that had him in a place he said he wasn’t.
Plaintiff was wrongfully convicted of a 1984 double homicide and sentenced to death, then re-tried and acquitted in 2009. Plaintiff alleged that Defendant Officers fabricated false eyewitness identifications and false inculpatory testimony from informants, and suppressed exculpatory evidence by burying it in a street file. Plaintiff alleged that the suppression of the street file was caused by the policies and practices of the City of Chicago. The Defendants contended that Plaintiff was guilty of the double homicide.
Plaintiffs, two African-American teenaged boys, were stopped by City of Poughkeepsie police because one (Dancy) supposedly matched the description of a suspected robber. When the other, Elting, tried to call his mother on his cell phone, he was taken to ground by defendant McGinley and beaten by McGinley and other officers while restrained. Elting was arrested for OGA and later the police claimed he possessed crack cocaine. Meanwhile, another officer, Williams, slammed Dancy’s head against side of patrol car, resulting in hairline jaw fracture.
Three officers of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department arrived at an apartment (no warrant) searching for my client’s brother. My client voluntarily opened the door and spoke to the Officers. Officers went to handcuff my client and the debacle of the situation ensued with the officer tripping and falling and bringing my client down with him. Then the Officers put client in chokehold, used pepper spray and put a knee in his neck. He had several neck surgeries and has pain everyday.