San Fernando Officer Broke Up Fight : Suit Claims Policeman Injured Girl, 14

Tricia Samora said it was her first fight ever.

The 14-year-old San Fernando Junior High School student recalled that she met another girl after school in the parking lot of a nearby Jack-In-The-Box. A crowd of classmates gathered around, and the two girls grappled.

The next thing she knew, Tricia said, she was on the ground, bleeding, with a policeman hitting her on the back of the head with his night stick.

Tricia has filed a suit against the City of San Fernando, claiming negligence on the part of the police officer, who she said struck her while breaking up the fight shortly after 1 p.m. on Sept. 20.

According to Samora’s attorney, William Kropach, the 4-foot-11, 110-pound schoolgirl suffered a fractured jaw and a severed lip that required 14 stitches. She also had one tooth knocked out, one tooth chipped and 12 others knocked loose.

The suit, filed last week in San Fernando Superior Court, asks for unspecified damages for Tricia’s medical bills and punitive damages of more than $15,000.

“You don’t break up two 14-year-old girls fighting by swinging a night stick,” Kropach said.

The policeman, Kropach said, “caused much more damage to Tricia than if he had let the girls fight for two weeks.”

San Fernando Police Chief Charles Sherwood said Tuesday that the department is investigating the incident. Sherwood declined to comment further because of the pending civil case.

The after-school fight had barely begun when two police officers arrived in the Jack-In-The-Box parking lot at the intersection of San Fernando Mission Road and Calis Street, according to Kropach, who said he has obtained statements from several witnesses. Tricia said she remembers being tugged back by her hair, then being struck once in the face and once on the head after she had fallen to the ground.

“When he hit me on the back of the head,” she said, “the other police officer there said, ‘What are you doing? This isn’t a riot.’ ”

Need for Surgery Noted

The girl’s father, Tony Samora, said Tricia had never been in trouble with the law before. He said she will need plastic surgery for her lip wound and possible surgery and braces for her teeth.

“I don’t know what would make him strike a child like that.” Samora said.

The officer who allegedly struck Samora remains unidentified. Kropach and Samora said the Police Department has ignored their requests for the officer’s name and a copy of the police report on the incident.

Samora said that, when he went to the San Fernando police station to ask for a copy of the report, a desk sergeant threatened that if he filed a civil suit, the officer involved would countersue.

Sherwood said he is unaware of any requests for information concerning the incident and did not hear of any complaints about his officer’s actions until the lawsuit was filed.