Mother, 3 Sons Say Police Beat Them in Home Fracas

San Diego police are conducting an internal probe of charges by a 38-year-old mother who said officers kicked and beat her family Feb. 8 after barging into her San Ysidro apartment around midnight in response to a nearly 3-hour-old complaint of a noisy party at another apartment.

Rosa Mogo and three of her sons, who range in age from 17 to 22, were arrested by police and charged with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. Police Lt. Jim Clain said Wednesday that police are looking into the incident that led to the jailings.

Each side offered sharply contrasting versions.

The Mogos, and several neighbors who witnessed the fight, said police used profanity during the altercation and acted without provocation. Clain said the reason police responded to the Mogo home is “immaterial” and added that Mogo and her sons “are lucky” they were not shot.

A police report says the fight began when one of Mogo’s sons pulled an officer inside the apartment and the family began beating the officer with his baton. Richard Mogo, 22, denied the police version of the fight and said the officer forced his way in and reacted violently when the family challenged his right to enter without a search warrant.

Clain insisted that police responded to the Mogo apartment on Del Sur Boulevard after receiving a call from a neighbor who complained about a loud television and a fight in the apartment.

However, Christina Magana, the neighbor who telephoned the complaint, said that she called police at 9:30 p.m. to complain about loud noise from a birthday party at the apartment next to the Mogos’. Sylvia Soltero, who was the party host, acknowledged that the celebration was boisterous but said the party had ended when police responded to Magana’s call.

Clain said the responding officers went to Magana’s apartment and asked where the apartment with the loud television was. Magana disputed that claim and said that police never came to her apartment that night.

Soltero said, “The police were two hours late, and they went to the wrong apartment. They were brutal with these people. I didn’t think that the police could treat people like this in America.”

The Mogos said that the roughly 12 officers who responded to the call were rude and used profanities. “They were calling us . . . wets,” Richard Mogo said. Alex Mogo, 17, said that at least one officer smelled of alcohol.

Family members showed a reporter Polaroid photographs of the the bruises and injuries that they suffered in the melee. Rosa Mogo, who has her right arm in a sling, said she suffered damaged ligaments when police kicked her repeatedly throughout the body after she attempted to help her sons. Several photographs show the woman with numerous bruises on her legs, buttocks and back.

The family also produced photos that they said showed the extensive damage done by police to furniture, clothing and other household items when they ransacked the apartment while looking for a policewoman’s lost handcuffs after the fight.

The family turned in a set of handcuffs that have the name Linda Miller and badge number 3196 engraved on one cuff.

Clain said some officers were injured in the fight, including an officer who was saved by an armored vest when he was stabbed by Rosa Mogo. But he refused to elaborate on the other injuries suffered by police, citing the department’s internal probe and a continuing criminal investigation of the Mogos.

Rosa Mogo and her sons heatedly denied that she attacked the police with the knife. According to her, her 13-year-old daughter, Rosa, left the knife on the table after peeling lemons earlier in the evening. The Mogos and neighbors said police returned to the apartment after the family was arrested and walked out with the knife.

Also included in the family’s allegations are charges by the teen-age daughter that one officer called her vulgar names and slammed his knee into her crotch, causing her to urinate on the officer’s pant leg.

“He scared me,” Rosa said. “The officer told me, ‘I’m gonna forget that you’re a little girl, you little bitch. I’m gonna kick your ass.’ He brought his knee up hard on my crotch and I urinated on him. I was scared.”

The teen-ager said the officer also stood her at the edge of a table and slammed her head on it.

Richard Mogo said the fight began when he was watching television with his brother Alex and a neighbor at 11:45 p.m. and police knocked at the door. Police said that Richard Mogo invited the officer inside and then began punching him. According to a police report, Alex Mogo and another brother, Gerardo, 18, joined Richard Mogo in assaulting the officer.

The Mogo brothers said, however, that two officers forced their way inside when Richard answered the knock at the door and said that a neighbor had complained about a loud television.

“I told one of the officers, ‘You can’t . . . come in the house without a search warrant.’ The guy then grabbed me by the hand and tried to pull me outside,” Richard said.

At that point, Alex said, he went to his brother’s aid.

“I got in between the cop and my brother. He pushed my brother and me down and then he tried to pull me out of the house. I resisted. I’ll admit that. But I resisted because the officer was angry and I was afraid of what he and his partner would do to me. . . . He threw a blow at my face, and I fell unconscious.”

Rosa Mogo said that she woke up to find eight officers in her living room, beating her handcuffed sons with kicks and batons. The Mogos claim that one officer hit Rosa Mogo on the back of the head with a flashlight.

“I woke up and saw the police beating my sons,” the mother said. “I reacted like any mother would and rushed in to get the police away from them. They were kicking and beating the boys. While I was trying to pull an officer off of Richard, another one hit me on the back of the head with a flashlight, and I passed out.”

According Rosa Mogo, another officer knelt over her and began slapping her back to consciousness.

Clain refused to respond to the family’s allegations about police conduct during the fracas.

Guillermo Mogo, 14, said he ran to his mother’s aid but was struck in the stomach by an officer. The boy said he began throwing up blood. Rosa Mogo said that another son, Javier, 7, was traumatized by the incident. The youngster, who family members say suffers from a hole in the heart, has been vomiting continuously since the incident.

A neighbor who witnessed the fight and who did not want to be identified said that the family “was dragged away in handcuffs, shirtless and shoeless, like animals.”

“The police dragged Mrs. Mogo away,” the man said. “They didn’t walk her to the car. They dragged the woman. She was barefoot and hurting, and they they threw her in the car. They did not put her in, they threw the woman in. It was disgusting.”

Rosa Mogo said two officers drove her to the County Jail at Las Colinas, where she was held for three days. Alex was taken to Juvenile Hall, where he spent three days, while Richard and Gerardo were taken to County Jail and released 24 hours later.

Rosa Mogo said the officers who drove her to Las Colinas pulled over at Beyer Boulevard, pulled her out of the car and resumed beating her.

According to Alex Mogo, the other officers drove by as they took the brothers to jail and they witnessed their mother’s beating.

“I told them, ‘Hey, that’s my mother. Why are they beating her again?’ ” Alex said. “They told me to relax and shut up.”

Richard Mogo said another cop pointed to his mother as they drove by and said:

“You want to see how we beat the . . . out of your mother?”

According to Rosa Mogo, the officers who drove her to jail began to express reservations about the incident. She said they began contriving a story to tell their superiors.

The allegations by the Mogos mark the second time in less than four weeks that a Latino family has complained about brutality by San Diego police.

A Jan. 16 melee in Linda Vista involving 11 officers and a church-going family sent Antonio Pena, 64, and a son, Francisco, 32, to the hospital with broken noses and bruises. Another son, Manuel, 29, suffered minor injuries.

Initially, Antonio and Francisco Pena were charged with assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, but charges against Antonio were dropped after an internal probe by police. One officer was charged with using excessive force against Francisco.

Police said that Francisco will be prosecuted on suspicion of resisting arrest and assaulting an officer and that Manuel will be prosecuted for drunk driving and resisting arrest.

Clain said the police will ask the district attorney to prosecute the Mogos.