County Awards $60,000 to Man Seriously Injured by Deputies

The Los Angeles County Claims Board has awarded $60,000 to a mentally handicapped Lennox man who was seriously injured after fleeing from sheriff’s deputies who thought he was acting suspiciously while taking trash to a dumpster next to his apartment.

The board’s award on Monday to Dwayne Mitchell was its most prompt since 1986, a review of county record shows. It came just eight months after Mitchell, a 29-year-old mentally limited man who lives with his mother, was struck on the head, back and legs during arrest.

Settlements of $20,000 or more must be approved by the board.

The board also awarded $60,000 to two Whittier men who claim that they were falsely arrested by deputies and $80,000 to a Pico Rivera couple and six guests at their 1988 wedding reception, which ended in a melee when 10 deputies chased a man through the party.

County lawyers say Mitchell, who had been sent to dispose of household trash at 7:20 p.m., hid behind a dumpster when he saw Deputies Lawrence Delmese and Joseph Halpin approach in their cruiser.

“He has a severe fear of everyone, including the police,” county lawyer Dean Olson said. “If you saw him, without knowing of his mental capabilities, you would think his mannerisms appear out of the ordinary.”

The deputies, noting Mitchell’s “nervousness and suspicious actions,” thought he might be a drug dealer, since cocaine is frequently sold on street corners near his Buford Avenue apartment, county lawyers said in a Claims Board summary.

Mitchell was placed in the back seat of the patrol car, where he became “very despondent and attempted to run from the deputies,” the summary said.

In a fight that followed, Mitchell was struck twice on the head with heavy metal flashlights, opening two cuts. Sheriff’s Department policy is that officers should strike suspects on the head--a potentially fatal blow--only when their lives are threatened.

Olson said the strikes were necessary because Mitchell had taken a nightstick away from one deputy and was waving it at the officers after a struggle of about seven minutes. “In (Mitchell’s) exact words, he said he lost control of himself and he wanted to start something with the deputies,” Olson said.

Hugh Manes, lawyer for Mitchell, acknowledged that the man made such statements during a deposition. However, Manes said that three witnesses would have testified that Mitchell was struck on the head at the beginning of the altercation and never reached for the nightstick.

“The (deputies) were questioning him and searching through his pockets,” Manes said. “That’s when he tried to run away, and that’s when they struck him with their flashlights. They knocked him down and were kicking him and hitting him.”

About 30 to 40 witnesses gathered as the incident progressed, Olson said.

“It created quite a scene,” he said. “Deputies aren’t loved by the drug dealers and maybe not by the residents there either.”

Mitchell was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and incurred legal expenses of $7,000, but the case was dismissed before trial, county lawyers said.

Manes said the deputies’ account of the incident didn’t make sense because his client was too small to put up a long struggle. Both deputies are about six feet tall, and Mitchell is 5-foot-6 and weighs 120 pounds, county lawyers said.

“We’re not getting $60,000 because the attorneys believe that nonsense,” Manes said.

County lawyers said they recommended settlement because of the possibility that a jury could award a much greater amount to Mitchell and to his attorneys.

Whether either deputy was disciplined is unknown because state law prohibits disclosure of such information about public employees.

In the Pico Rivera case, county lawyers said they recommended settlement partly because “several innocent people” were cut or bruised when deputies entered a Veterans of Foreign Wars reception hall in pursuit of a guest who had “become verbal” with them.

One 50-year-old guest was used as a battering ram to force open a door, a 40-year-old woman was cut on the eye when struck with a nightstick, and another guest’s videotape of the incident was confiscated and destroyed, plaintiffs’ attorneys alleged.

Six of the eight plaintiffs, including newlyweds Cassandra and Daniel Herrera, were arrested for assaulting or interfering with officers, but were cleared. Vincent Jacquez, who allegedly lunged at a deputy with a wedding-cake knife, was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, and a youth was found guilty of obstructing an officer, lawyers said.

The deputies had been called to the VFW hall to take into custody a bounty hunter who created a disturbance while seeking a man not at the reception, lawyers for both sides said.

After the bounty hunter’s arrest outside the hall, Alfonso Jacquez began arguing with deputies and was shot with a taser dart “to keep him quiet and control him.” But the dart had little effect, and the man ran back into the reception, according to a case summary for the Claims Board summary.

The deputies rushed into the wedding hall as “storm troopers . . . and destroyed plaintiffs’ wedding by throwing tables and chairs and striking, beating and arresting plaintiffs’ guests,” the suit alleges. “The defendants created a mob scene.”

Six of the eight plaintiffs received minor injuries, the most serious a three-inch cut to a woman’s eye, their lawyer, Edward M. Fox, said.

Eleven officers were named as defendants in the suit; three were identified by both first and last names. They are deputies Robert Barum, Loretta Nevarez and Patrick Gomez.

In another settlement, the Claims Board awarded $60,000 to two Whittier men who say they were arrested without a good reason outside the Roman Knight bar in November, 1986.

Robert Palomino, 35, and Armando Matas, 31, were arrested by deputies responding to a robbery call from the South Whittier bar. The men were not robbery suspects but became involved in a confrontation with the deputies, according to county lawyers.

Matas claims that he was struck across the back with a short leather-covered baton and kicked repeatedly in the groin.

Both men, who are air-conditioning system installers, were charged with assaulting an officer but were acquitted.

They filed a civil lawsuit, which ended in a 5-1 hung jury against Deputies Gary B. Hellman and Bruce Prewett last June. Although injuries were minor, county lawyers said they recommended a settlement because a verdict against the deputies would lead to payment of attorneys’ fees that would “greatly exceed” the $60,000 settlement.

Thomas Beck, attorney for the two men, said his fees would have exceeded $100,000.

Beck maintained that Matas and Palomino were arrested without probable cause and that Matas was battered by Hellman.

“The physical injury is over, but here’s a cop who overreacts, has a history of overreacting, and so he charges these guys with criminal acts that he knows they have not committed,” Beck said.

Court records show that Hellman has been accused of brutality in at least 10 lawsuits in the last decade. Since 1986, the county has paid cash settlements totaling $160,500 in four of those cases, records show.

Prewett has been named in two other excessive force lawsuits since 1986, with one settled last year for $150,000.