City agrees to $1 million settlement in torture slaying of teenage police informant 

Tuesday, August 27, 2002 
    
 

(08-27) 07:02 PDT BREA, Calif. (AP) -- The city has agreed to a $1 million settlement for the mother of a teenager who was tortured and killed because of his undercover work as a police drug "snitch." City
Manager Tim O'Donnell said the settlement would be paid by an insurance company to Cindy MacDonald,
mother of 17-year-old Chad MacDonald. "This is a number that will send out a message to all police
departments that they can't use juveniles as drug informants," MacDonald's attorney, Lloyd Charton, said
of the settlement. Using Chad as an informant violated Orange County guidelines. 

A state law passed since Chad's 1998 death limits the use of teenage drug informants. MacDonald said Brea police had convinced her and Chad that he would have to be an informant in
order to stay out of jail after his arrest for selling drugs in Yorba Linda. Brea police serve Yorba Linda.
Police said MacDonald's work as an informant had ended by the time he was murdered by three drug dealers, who also raped and shot his girlfriend. She survived. The people responsible for Chad's death have been sentenced to life in prison, O'Donnell said. 
 

Family settles in arrest death
A Woodland man died while officers took him into custody in 1999.

By Denny Walsh -- Bee Staff Writer - (Published July 6, 2002)

Juan G. Nieto's family will receive $284,500 as compensation for his death during an attempt by Woodland police officers to take him into custody.

The 23-year-old Nieto died in a motel courtyard Dec. 3, 1999, after he was chased down by officers, who wanted to arrest him for buying alcohol for two underage police decoys at a convenience store two blocks away.

An autopsy found Nieto died of cardiac arrest while under the influence of methamphetamine. Yolo County District Attorney David Henderson declined to file charges against the officers.

However, witnesses to the incident and an attorney for the Nieto family say in federal court declarations that the officers clubbed and kicked Nieto while he offered no resistance, and that they let a dog loose on him after he had given up.

The Woodland Police Department denies those accusations. It counters that Nieto fought with the officers and died during the struggle.

Two federal lawsuits filed on behalf of Nieto family members name Woodland, its police chief and five officers as defendants. Three officers are now Sacramento County sheriff's deputies.

During the course of pre-trial discovery in the suits, it emerged that the officers involved in the incident were initially questioned "off the record" by the department's internal investigators, then later questioned "on the record." When asked about this, department representatives said the procedure had been taught in a seminar as a way to eliminate "inconsistencies that lawyers may later seize on."

Attorney Jeffrey Jacobs, who represents Nieto's mother, Irma Chavez, said in an interview Friday that the procedure "is not designed to ferret out the truth."

Under the terms of a recent settlement with the city in one suit, Nieto's 4-year-old son, Carlos Nieto, and 6-year-old daughter, Livy Nieto, are to receive $199,500. Their attorney, Stewart Katz, is to receive $55,589 out of that. The balance will go into several annuities that will yield payments to the children totaling $263,466 by the time they reach 26.

Chavez is to be paid $85,000 under terms resolving the other suit. Jacobs said he is not yet sure how much of that will come to him.

He acknowledged the money does not seem like much given the alleged facts surrounding Nieto's death, but cited some of the considerations that went into the decision to settle.

"Unfortunately, juries in Sacramento federal court tend to side with the police," he noted. "That history plays into settlement negotiations.

"It's iffy for someone with a less-than-pristine background," Jacobs said, referring to Nieto's criminal record. He added, "Had it been a white, middle-class boy, we might have had a better feeling about our chances."

Nieto, who was well-known to Woodland police, had been charged in the past with assault, domestic violence, battery and dissuading a witness. One officer at the scene of his death was also involved in an arrest on Sept. 9, 1999, during which Nieto's arm was broken. He was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving and resisting arrest and was accused by police of violently struggling with them. He missed a November court date and, at the time of his death, five warrants for his arrest were outstanding.

Jacobs said he took the case primarily to shed some light on what he feels was "an egregious incident. It kind of set me off."

Bruce Kilday, outside litigation counsel for Woodland, has a dramatically different perspective.

"Nothing has changed our view that Mr. Nieto died from his methamphetamine intake and the exertion from running away," said Kilday in an interview.

An element of the city's decision to settle was a question regarding the admissibility at a trial of Nieto's criminal history, he said. "I'm not sure the jury would have been fully apprised of his background."

In addition, Kilday said, retired Sacramento federal Judge Raul Ramirez, who acted as a private mediator, saw the possibility that a jury's award to the family could run as high as $750,000.

But the biggest factor in the city's thinking, Kilday said, was the potential that it would have to pay a lot of money to the family's attorneys.

"Juries don't realize that the law allows plaintiffs' attorneys in these federal civil rights cases to petition the courts for their fees over and above what is awarded at trial," he pointed out. "Even in cases where the jury awards a very small amount, plaintiffs' attorneys sometimes get 50 and 60 times that from the court.

"That's all tax money," he added, because the city has no insurance. Instead, it is in a risk pool with other Northern California public entities.

On the other hand, he said, the defense cannot recover attorneys' fees.

"This doesn't mean that they settle everything," Kilday stressed. "We take it case by case and, while I am still convinced we would have prevailed at trial, I didn't believe this case was worth the risk."

The Bee's Denny Walsh can be reached at (916) 321-1189 or  [email protected]

Editorial: Disturbing prison questions
 

Saturday February 16, 2002, 06:40:08 PM 

Three inmate murders in a two-year period at Wasco State Prison have raised disturbing questions.  An in-depth look at the prison by The Californian's Fred Ludwig pointed out that the murders come amid a string of other types of problems at the prison that have brought criticism and charges of organizational lapses.

Also underlying the situation is the fact that the entire California penal computer system needs to be upgraded to ensure information about inmates can be easily accessed by personnel at every prison at all times.The problems at Wasco started in 1999 when Assemblyman Dean Florez, D-Shafter, initiated a state audit of the prison. He requested the audit after confidential information on about a half-dozen guards was discovered in the hands of an inmate.The audit blamed the information leak on "weak managerial oversight and a lack of staff vigilance."

Last year, a laptop computer containing confidential information on hundreds of workers at the prison was stolen from a prison employee's car that was parked on a Bakersfield street. Now prison officials admit a computer glitch improperly paired a dangerous inmate with a cellmate. Paul Posada is accused of the 2001 Sept. 29 strangulation death of his cellmate, Gary Avila.

The Department of Corrections main computer in Sacramento classified Posada as a risky inmate who should be housed alone. Wasco's computer records weren't updated with that vital information until after the murder, prison officials admit. 

A lawsuit blames prison negligence in the December 2000 beating death of Tomas Tanishita, allegedly at the hands of his cellmate, James Oh, who committed suicide before his case went to trial. Before being transferred to the Wasco prison, Orange County jail officials held Oh by himself after he ran toward his sleeping cellmate and jumped on his head. 

Two weeks after that assault, Oh arrived at Wasco prison and was housed with "no restrictions," according to state files.In another alarming incident, Wasco inmate Raymond Padilla was sentenced to 50 years to life after he strangled and stabbed cellmate Raymond Loya in September 1999. A month later, a state audit concluded poor management and careless upkeep endangered both staff and inmates at the prison.

These incidents certainly raise questions why the prison and state can't do a better job of identifying and isolating dangerous inmates.Wasco houses the largest of California's 12 state prison reception centers in which inmates are evaluated and put into security categories. 

They are then assigned to their final prison.This extremely important task cannot be allowed to be flawed by faulty computers or human frailties.Yet state prisons do not have the capability of sharing computer information, Florez said. When a prisoner is transferred to another prison, information about him is sent on a floppy disk. There is no guarantee when and if this information will be plugged into the next prison's computer." This is the biggest problem in our prisons," Florez said.

To correct the problem, Florez introduced legislation, AB 1524, that would require the prisons to implement a paperless Intranet-based system for all inmates. The California Psychiatric Association strongly endorses the legislation, noting: "It is quite common for inmates to be transported in the prison system, and their medical records do not follow them." The legislation cleared the Assembly, but is tied up in the Senate Appropriations Committee.The bill should be enacted into law. It just might prevent future mayhem at all state prisons -- including the Wasco facility. 

Children sue Long Beach PD in shooting death of their mom
 

Published 7:40 p.m. PST Monday, Jan. 28, 2002

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - The children and mother of a woman shot to death by Long Beach police after she allegedly lunged at them with a knife announced Monday the filing of a wrongful death claim, the first step toward a lawsuit.Angela Byrd said her 57-year-old mother, Marcella Byrd, was mentally ill."My mom was more like my daughter.

I did everything for her," Byrd said, sobbing, during a news conference at the office of the family's lawyer. Tirus Parhms, the elder Byrd's son, agreed his mother was gentle.Attorney John E. Sweeney said he filed a $25 million claim Monday against Long Beach. A Police Department spokesman said it was policy not to comment on such claims.If the claim is rejected, Marcella Byrd's family said they likely would sue for wrongful death.Long Beach police officials have defended the Jan. 19 shooting, saying the three officers who opened fire feared for their safety. 
 

They struck Byrd several times in the torso. Sgt. Steve Filipini said at the time that Byrd had refused orders to drop an 8-inch knife, adding that the 300-pound woman's advance was not deterred by the beanbag projectiles officers first fired at her."Normal folks, the reasonable person, does not display a knife when law enforcement arrives at the scene," Filipini said. He added the beanbags "just made her more infuriated."The confrontation began after officers were called to a market where Byrd was approached by the manager after she had allegedly shoplifted groceries.Police said the manager backed off and called authorities when he saw the woman's knife. 

Corrections Department sued by family of Chowchilla inmate

Friday, November 30, 2001 
 

(11-30) 16:31 PST CHOWCHILLA, Calif. (AP) -- The family of one of several prisoners who died at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla a year ago sued the state Friday, alleging negligence. The suit filed in the United States District Court in Fresno alleges prison officials failed to provide Stephanie Janet Hardie with timely and adequate medical care and were guilty negligent supervision and abuse of a dependent adult. Hardie, 34, of Pomona had an enlarged heart when she died Dec. 9, one of several mysterious inmate deaths that prison officials for a time worried might have been from improper sharing of prescription drugs or some other common cause.

That turned out not to be the case, according to University of California doctors who investigated the deaths at the request of the California Department of Corrections. Dr. Kathleen Clanon, a University of California, San Francisco physician who investigated Hardie's death, said Hardie should have received better medical treatment after she complained about chest and stomach pain and shortness of breath. Friday's suit was filed by Hardie's mother, Diane Hardie-Rios, on her own behalf and on behalf of Hardie's two children, Nicole, 15, and Jason, 14. 

The suit names the Correction Department's former director, Cal Terhune, prison warden Gwendolyn Mitchell, and 10 unknown prison employees the suit alleges should have provided better care. Hardie's attorney, Robert Bastian, said he anticipates additional prison employees will be named in the suit as more information becomes available. Corrections Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said she hadn't seen the suit and couldn't immediately comment. 

Mother awarded $850,000 in son's death

By Darryl Richardson/Reporter Staff

A federal jury in Sacramento awarded nearly $850,000 in damages Tuesday to the family of a Vacaville man shot by local police officers following a traffic accident in 1997.

The 10-person jury deliberated for just more than a day last week to reach the decision that Sgt. Scott Paulin of the Vacaville Police Department and Fairfield Police officer Dennis Flores acted negligently in the shooting of Doron Lifton. The jury then took three hours Tuesday to determine the amount of damages. The jury completely exonerated a third officer, Matt Lydon of the Vacaville Police Department."We're incredibly disappointed in the jury's decision," said Vacaville City Attorney Charles Lamoree. "We believe the verdict is completely wrong and represents the jury's sympathy for a mother and her mentally ill son."

Lifton, 33, was shot by officers following a confrontation after a traffic accident at Peabody Road and Cliffside Drive. According to witnesses, Lifton's car ran a red light and struck two other vehicles. Lifton then climbed out the driver's side window and started to leave the scene, walking southbound on Peabody.While leaving the scene, Lifton, who had a history of paranoid schizophrenia, picked up a 4-foot long metal pipe and began waving it toward several officers on the scene. Sgt. Paulin attempted to subdue Lifton by using a department-issued taser gun, but Lifton moved out of the way. The suspect then moved toward Paulin and swung the pipe, hitting the officer in the chest and knocking him down, according to police. The officers fired 14 shots at Lifton when it appeared he was preparing to swing again, hitting him eight times, they said.Michael Haddad, the Oakland-based attorney for Lifton's family, disputed many of the officers' claims, including that Sgt. Paulin was struck by the pipe. 

But Haddad said the jury focused on other events."They (the jury) decided the negligence occurred before that time," he said. "They found the police escalated the situation instead of diffusing it as they are trained. The police did everything the exact opposite of the way they are supposed to."Another area the plaintiffs emphasized was the possibility of using non-lethal force on Lifton. A Sage gun, which fires plastic projectiles and is meant to knock down suspects, was being brought to the scene by other officers when the shooting occurred, Haddad said.

When told of the jury's decision, Mike Cook, Vacaville's police chief at the time, said the verdict was "absolutely ridiculous." Cook said two separate investigations, one internal and one by the Solano County Response Team, found the shooting justified."Those officers were in fear for their lives," he said. "They didn't have the opportunity to wait. Another two seconds and Sgt. Paulin could have been dead."The jury originally awarded more than $1.2 million in damages. 

However, they also found Lifton to be 30 percent responsible for the incident and the final award was reduced by that amount.As city employees, the officers are covered by city insurance policies and will not be directly responsible for paying the award. Since both Vacaville and Fairfield officers were involved, the two cities will split the payments."There will be some insurance coverage on this," Lamoree said. "We put some money aside in the budget each year for situations like this. It shouldn't have any impact on the budget."

According to Lamoree, the judge in the case ordered the jury not to consider imposing punitive damages in the case. The officers themselves would have been directly responsible for paying any punitive damages.Lamoree also said no determination has yet been made concerning an appeal of the decision, although the judge has left the door open for that. The judgment was not officially entered, meaning it is still legally binding but payment does not have to be made at this time."The judge said he will set aside some time in August or September for us to file a motion for new trial dates," Lamoree said. "We're going to step back and evaluate our options with the attorneys over the next month."

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Abstract:
The proposal, written by Supervisor Gloria Molina, comes two weeks after the board agreed to pay $600,000 to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the sisters of Kevin Lamar Evans. The 5-foot-4, 150-pound Evans died a day after he was arrested in Palmdale in 1999 with a stolen shopping cart. Evans suffered heart failure at the Twin Towers jail after being restrained ...

 http://www.bakersfield.com/local/story/306237p-346451c.html

Lawsuit blames police for death
 

By FRED LUDWIG, Californian staff writer e-mail: 
 [email protected]
Thursday May 10, 2001, 10:05:07 PM 

A lawsuit filed Thursday accuses Bakersfield police of taking too long to get medical aid for a Bakersfield man in their custody one year ago, resulting in his death. Enrique Juarez Ochoa died at Kern Medical Center after being subdued by police with help of two jolts from an electric-shock Taser gun. 

Officers broke into a bathroom and overcame the hysterical 34-year-old, who had been screaming that someone was trying to kill him. The inherent risks of Taser use require prompt medical attention afterward, said Ochoa family attorney Arturo Gonzalez. But officers waited a half-hour for a supervisor to arrive before taking Ochoa away, then drove at normal speed to the hospital, without emergency sirens, Gonzalez said. 

He said although they had become concerned about breathing problems Ochoa had experienced, officers left him on the floor at KMC, delaying his care by at least 10 more minutes. "There was no legitimate law enforcement reason for having deprived him of immediate medical attention," Gonzalez said. 

The suit filed in federal court in Fresno seeks unspecified damages and an order that police promptly arrange medical attention in similar situations in the future, Gonzalez said. Kern County coroner's officials concluded the cause of death was internal and external bleeding from blunt impact to his face and head -- problems that had occurred because he was in a hyperexcitable state induced by cocaine use. Ochoa suffered self-inflicted blows to his head while in the back seat of a patrol car, coroner's officials ruled. 

Medical and law enforcement experts who reviewed the case for the city found Ochoa's death came from the "toxic effects of cocaine overdose," said Deputy City Attorney Walter Porr. Porr refrained from comment on many specifics of the case, including whether the city's experts agreed with the coroner's conclusions. "We've had this looked at," Porr said. "We're not responsible for the man's death. We're going to defend the case." Gonzalez said his experts will testify the injuries were not self-inflicted, but instead were consistent with punching and kicking. Gonzalez stopped short of saying officers inflicted the injuries, saying that will be an issue for the jury. 

The Mother's Day incident began at the home of Ochoa's parents in the 5500 block of Dustin Street. After hearing crashing sounds, police said they broke into the bathroom and found Ochoa on his back in the bathtub kicking and flailing his arms. In the patrol car later, Ochoa banged his head on a car seat, seat-belt apparatus and a metal grate, police said. "None of the physical injures were inflicted by the officers," Porr said. Ochoa died some eight hours after police were summoned. Taser guns are commonly used on combative suspects who may be under the influence of drugs, police have said. 

NO CHARGES FILED IN FATAL CRASH

An off-duty San Jose police officer whose cruiser hit and killed a Milpitas motorist in June has avoided criminal charges, but the victim's husband plans to file a wrongful-death lawsuit on the heels of an investigation that deemed the officer partly responsible for the fatality.

The report by the California Highway Patrol found Sgt. Bruce Young, 36, to be primarily at fault for the pre-dawn accident June 19, alleging he exceeded the speed limit when he hit Yi Tzu Chen's 1991. . . 

WIDOW SETTLES WITH POLICE FOR $1 MILLION SAN FRANCISCO 

A multimillion-dollar federal lawsuit filed by the widow and children of a man fatally shot by a Rohnert Park police officer four years ago has been settled for $1 million in San Francisco.

Attorney Steve Mitchell, who represented the city in the wrongful death case, said Tuesday the decision to settle was an economic one and that the city has not changed its position that the shooting was lawful.

The 1998 lawsuit claimed that Public Safety Officer Jack Shields violated. . . 

Suit filed in suspect's death

The 26-year-old man was killed by SWAT deputies as he fled.The fatal shooting by Sacramento County sheriff's deputies of a man running away from them has given rise to a $48 million wrongful death lawsuit.

Jeffrey Jacob Scott was killed by Special Weapons and Tactics sharpshooters on May 23 in the parking area of a Citrus Heights apartment complex.

Officers had what they considered to be reliable information that the 26-year-old Scott was drug-crazed and murderous.

But the suit, filed Friday in Sacramento federal court, . . .

PANEL'S SWAT REVIEW DELAYED

LOCKYER COMMISSION FORMED AFTER SHOOTING DEATH OF MODESTO BOY

A statewide review of SWAT team practices and procedures will not be finished by the end of August as planned.

But the blue-ribbon commission created by Attorney General Bill Lock-yer -- after the shooting death of a Modestto boy during a SWAT operation -- is said to be making progress.

The panel now hopes to deliver its recommendations to Lockyer by the end of November.

After a series of fact-finding meetings, Stanislaus County Sheriff Les Weidman, vice chairman of the. . .

CORONER'S INQUESTS A MIXED BAG

More than a few people were puzzled by a recent coroner's inquest ruling that it was accidental when a Walnut Creek police officer killed a Pittsburg man Feb. 13.

After all, Officer David Wright testified during the May 29 hearing that he fired four bullets that killed 23-year-old Jason Amen Watts.

Yet the nine-member panel ruled the shooting an accident rather than "at the hands of another."

The ruling sheds light on an enduring quarrel between civil rights attorneys. . . 

SUIT ALLEGES COVERUP AFTER POLICE SHOOTING

A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed contending that police engaged in a coverup after an officer fatally shot a Halloween partygoer who was holding a fake gun.

Tina Lee-Vogt of Elk Grove claimed Monday that the shooting of her brother, Anthony Dwain Lee, was unjustified and excessive.

Police have said officer Tarriel Hopper shot the 39-year-old Lee immediately after he saw Lee point the phony gun at him Oct. 28.

An autopsy found that Lee was struck from behind by four. . . 

Trial set Tuesday in death lawsuit

In the minutes and hours after her arrest on suspicion of drunken driving the day before Easter 1998, Marguerite Marzullo told one officer she might as well be dead and told another she didn't want to be in jail.

Neither officer considered Marzullo suicidal. But she later took her own life in a jail cell by wrapping her jacket around her neck and tying its arms to a bar.

Her daughter, Cindy Staunton, was consumed by the death and later filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city. . . 

COURTS: L.A. County is accused of covering up evidence in a wrongful-death lawsuit.

MORNING
September 10, 2000
Byline: The Associated Press
A lawyer in a wrongful-death case against the Sheriff's Department is accusing the county and its counsel of trimming seconds off a videotape of a man being "hogtied" by deputies. Attorney Leo Terrell, who represents the family of Dwayne Nelson, said Friday the department released a videotape of the arrest that trimmed "10 critical seconds" off the recording. The edited version was given to him and the U.S. Attorney's Office, which is investigating the

$12.5 MILLION AWARDED IN RAID

FRESNO - The family of a Dinuba man shot to death during a police raid has been awarded $12.5 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit.The civil lawsuit was filed against the city of Dinuba and the officers after Ramon Gallardo Sr. was shot 15 times during a raid of his home July 11, 1997.A federal jury awarded $5 million to Gallardo's estate and another $5 million to his wife, Carmen, who was in the bedroom with her husband during the raid. She was awarded an additional $150,000 for. . . 

Published on December 12, 2000, 
Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA)

CLAIM FILED IN KILLING OF MAN WITH FAKE GUN

LOS ANGELES A $100 million wrongful death claim was filed against the city Monday by the sister of an actor holding a fake gun at a Halloween party who was fatally shot in the back by a police officer.The claim says the city, the police department and the two officers present at the shooting are responsible for the killing, although only Officer Tarriel Hopper fired his weapon.The claim accuses Hopper of gross negligence in the shooting of Anthony Dwain Lee, 39, on Oct. 28.If the. . .