Trucker Settles Brutality Suit Against Deputies for $150,000

A long-haul truck driver, who was pulled from his rig and beaten in a struggle with Norwalk station sheriff’s deputies last year, has been awarded $150,000 by Los Angeles County.

The award by the Board of Supervisors settles a lawsuit filed by a Missouri trucker who accused five deputies of kicking and beating him with clubs and flashlights in a mini-market parking lot in February, 1987.

The trucker, Coy Blane Willbanks, was napping in his rig when deputies roused him and ordered him to move the truck, which was blocking several parking spaces. The struggle occurred after Willbanks refused.

County lawyers said they recommended the settlement because several witnesses said that the deputies had used undue force to subdue Willbanks.

“There are six independent witness who were at a service station within ten feet of the parking lot, all of whom support (Willbanks’) version of the incident,” Deputy County Counsel Dennis Gonzales wrote in a report to the supervisors.

“The witnesses all felt that he was being beaten inappropriately,” Gonzales said in an interview. “There were batons used, but all my deputies denied any kicking.”

Cuts Required 25 Stitches

Willbanks was hospitalized for three days with bruises over much of his body, cuts on his head that required 25 stitches and leg injuries that have caused circulatory problems that he claims prevent him from driving a truck, Gonzales said.

But Gonzales maintained that the deputies, who he said were not disciplined by the Sheriff’s Department, had acted properly.

“Frankly, our deputies feel they had to utilize this amount of force to subdue this guy. He was a monster. . . . And the six witnesses indicate he was not passive by any means. I felt the deputies did what they had to do under the circumstances.”

Both sides agree that the 32-year-old Willbanks, who is 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 275 pounds, kicked at the officers to keep them out of his cab. Gonzales said he bruised the cheek of one deputy. “He was clearly resisting arrest.”

However, in a criminal trial that followed the parking-lot melee, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Willbanks not guilty of resisting arrest or of assaulting a police officer.

Willbanks’ attorney, Michael J. Cisarik, said in an interview that his client, a part-time driver who was exhausted from 36 straight hours at the wheel, told jurors that he was lost and dozing off just before he maneuvered his rig into the parking lot at La Mirada Boulevard and Mulberry Drive.

“This was his first time on the road by himself,” Cisarik said. “He’d dropped off a load in Anaheim, and he couldn’t find the freeway. He ended up in Norwalk falling asleep at the wheel, so he pulled over to this little strip mall.”

Awakened suddenly, Willbanks told deputies he was too tired to move and directed them to go ahead and tow his truck, as they had threatened, Cisarik said.

Instead, one deputy began to pull on Willbanks’ leg and hit it with his flashlight, Cisarik said. The driver responded by kicking at the officer, both attorneys said. Gonzales said Willbanks also swung a stick at one officer.

Cisarik said witnesses supported Willbanks’ account that two officers entered the cab and beat Willbanks with batons.

“This went on for five minutes or 10 minutes and then Coy fell out of the cab. . . . He said he didn’t remember anything after that,” Cisarik said.

But officers said Willbanks continued to flail at them. And witnesses testified that five officers held him or beat him, one continuing even after his hands and feet were tied together behind his back, Cisarik said.

“One witness said (the officer) kicked him like a football,” Cisarik said.

In his lawsuit, Willbanks charged the five deputies not only with excessive force but with filing false police reports and using the threat of criminal prosecution to try to harass him into dropping his suit.

The suit also charged Los Angeles County with employing deputies “who have a history or propensity for violent, cruel or irregular behavior and for inflicting unnecessary, unreasonable or excessive force.”

Cisarik alleged in court documents that Deputy Sam Ferri had been charged with excessive force in at least six prior incidents, while deputies Bruce Prewett and Everett Maldonado had been involved in at least two such incidents. Gonzales would not comment on the deputies’ records.

All three still work at the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station, as does Joseph Lomonaco, a fourth deputy involved in the incident. Thomas Ross, also a defendant in the Willbanks case, has left the department, a spokesman said.

The Sheriff’s Department refused to discuss the Willbanks incident or any other claims and lawsuits against the deputies.