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Santa Ana facing $10 million suit over police shooting
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by DOUG IRVING / cwla Thursday September 11, 2008
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he family of a man shot and killed by police during a confrontation last month has filed a $10 million federal lawsuit against the city, calling the shooting malicious and “shocking to the conscience.”
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By DOUG IRVING
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SANTA ANA – The family of a man shot and killed by police during a confrontation last month has filed a $10 million federal lawsuit against the city, calling the shooting malicious and “shocking to the conscience.”
Police shot 35-year-old Juan Herminio Carrasco after he tried to grab an officer’s gun from its holster during a struggle, according to police accounts. Another officer fired multiple rounds at him, hitting him in the upper body; he died at the hospital.
The lawsuit, filed this week on behalf of his wife and three children, claims that officers continued shooting at him even as he crawled on the ground, wounded. It accuses the city and its police of violating his civil rights and of targeting minorities such as him.
A separate claim filed with the city notes that Carrasco’s family will seek $10 million in federal court.
Police Cpl. Jose Gonzalez declined to comment, saying the police department makes it a policy not to comment on civil cases.
Police weren’t looking for Carrasco when they were sent to the 800 block of East Bishop Street on an evening in early August. They were responding to reports of a possibly armed man inside a red truck.
The man in the truck was questioned and released. But during the investigation, another man who appeared “excited and agitated” began interfering with officers, according to the Police Department’s account of what happened.
Officers stopped the man – later identified as Carrasco – because of his irrational behavior and patted him down for weapons, according to police. He resisted as they tried to take him into custody and, police say, grabbed an officer’s handgun.
Police did not find any weapons during their search of Carrasco.
Federico Sayre, the attorney representing the family, said that Carrasco did approach police and “started jawing with them.” But, he wrote in the lawsuit, the decision by police to stop and search him was “without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.”
Sayre said witnesses reported seeing a scuffle between Carrasco and the officers, but that Carrasco was face-down on the ground before any shots were fired. He wrote in the lawsuit that Carrasco “did not represent a threat” to the officers or anyone else.
The lawsuit describes Carrasco crawling “on his hands and knees” after being wounded, and claims police shot him again when he was on the ground.
The lawsuit claims police violated Carrasco’s Constitutional protection from unreasonable searches and cruel and unusual punishment. It claims the city and police also violated his civil rights by permitting “the unreasonable or excessive use of force against Hispanic and/or minority suspects.”
The case was filed this week in U.S. District Court.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or dirving@ocregister.com
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