Youth’s $10-Million Suit Claims Police Torture by Stun Gun

A teen-ager allegedly tortured with powerful jolts from a stun gun by two former Huntington Park police officers filed a $10-million suit Friday against the city and the men.

Jaime Ernesto Ramirez, 18, was repeatedly stunned with the gun while he sat in the back of a police car, his hands cuffed behind him, after being picked up by the officers in the early morning of Nov. 30, his lawyer, Mario Diaz, said.

“This kind of atrocious conduct is reprehensible,” Diaz told a news conference.

The officers, William Lustig and Robert Rodriguez, were later arrested in the incident and charged with felony assault. At the time, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner called the officers “a disgrace to law enforcement.”

Reiner said the gun, which delivers a 50,000-volt charge, was powerful enough to “drop a grown man.” The 106-pound teen-ager, who was being questioned by the officers about a stolen radio, suffered burns on his left thigh from about a dozen jolts.

Huntington Park city officials, including members of the City Council, the mayor, the former city attorney, the city administrator and other police officers are also named in the suit. The other officers and a 16-year-old female Explorer Scout were included because they did nothing to stop the torture, Diaz said.