Mexican Official Hails Jury Verdict : ‘Victorville Five’: The consul general says the $1-million award to three men is a victory for all Mexican citizens abused by U.S. law enforcement officials.

Mexico’s consul general in Los Angeles on Thursday hailed a nearly $1-million jury verdict for three Mexican nationals as a victory for all Mexican citizens in the United States who have suffered harassment or beatings by American law enforcement officers.

The award of $956,000 to the men who claim they were brutally beaten in Victorville by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies is “important to us not only because of the money but because of the precedent it establishes for Mexican nationals here,” Consul General Jose Angel Pescador said at a news conference at Olvera Street plaza in the heart of old Los Angeles.

“I would say a lot of people now are sure that they are going to be treated fairly. . . . That is a good precedent for us,” Pescador said.

The Mexican Consulate had kept a daily watch on the federal court trial in which five deputies were accused of using excessive force on the Mexican men, who were dubbed the “Victorville Five” by local Latino activists.

Wednesday’s jury award against three of the deputies paves the way for the second half of the civil trial, which is scheduled to begin in February before U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima in Los Angeles. The plaintiffs filed a suit claiming that their civil rights were violated by the deputies.

Carlos Juarez, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said they expect to ask jurors to award at least $1 million in damages against San Bernardino County and Sheriff Floyd Tidwell for condoning the deputies’ use of excessive force.

Videotape Cited

Juarez said Thursday that a videotape of the altercation in the high desert community “tipped the scales of justice in our favor in this case.”

Deputies have maintained that their use of force was justified because one of the men pushed an officer, then grabbed for the guns of two deputies during the scuffle on June 30, 1988. The videotape shot by a neighbor appears to show deputies hitting several of the men with fists, elbows and batons. It is one of the first to be used in a police brutality case in federal court.

“If it weren’t for the videotape, who knows what would have happened,” Juarez said.

But David D. Lawrence, who represents the deputies, Sheriff Tidwell and San Bernardino County, called the award excessive. No decision has been made about whether to appeal, he said.

“First of all, there were no serious injuries in this case, and that is undisputed,” Lawrence said Thursday. “The judgments that were rendered were entirely out of proportion with anything that might be viewed as compensating these plaintiffs for anything that might have happened to them.”

If the jury’s award is upheld by the court, under state law Sgt. Tim Miller and deputies Mark Swagger and John Gocke would be reimbursed for the $466,000 in compensatory damages they were ordered to pay. Lawrence said the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors would have to decide whether to pay a total of $470,000 in punitive damages awarded to Efren Serrano and his son, Victor, and to Auro Ruiz.

Jurors also decided that the constitutional rights of Jose Serrano and Javier Ruelas were violated by Deputies Joe L. Phillips and Paul Schmidt, but that no damages should be awarded because the deputies were entitled to qualified immunity for “acting in good faith.”

Speaking on behalf of all five Mexican men, Auro Ruiz said at Thursday’s news conference that he was grateful for the support of Juarez and the San Bernardino-based Institute for Social Justice, a civil rights organization that brought the videotape to public attention.

Undecided on Money

Ruiz, 39, said none of the men have decided what they will do with the money, except that they will share it among all five and that they want to support the advancement of social justice.

Asked whether he thought the award was fair compensation for their experience, Ruiz said, “You cannot really put a price tag on what happened to us.”

The consul general said he remains “very worried about the (need for) protection of the human rights” of Mexican citizens living in Southern California.

He said Mexican consular offices in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Bernardino, Oxnard and elsewhere stand ready to provide information, support and referrals to any Mexican citizens who feel their rights have been violated.