Alleged Brutality by Deputies Costs County : Law enforcement: Excessive-force lawsuits have nearly doubled in recent years. Sheriff Block stands by department policies and his officers.

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy confronts a South Gate man at his home with an unpaid traffic ticket. A fight breaks out and the man is clubbed to death. The county settles the subsequent lawsuit for $150,000.

A dozen deputies break up a family birthday party for a 15-year-old girl in Lynwood, and seven party-goers are injured. Five are charged with various crimes, but all charges are later dismissed. In settlement of their lawsuit against the county, 20 family members receive $225,000.

A Newbury Park salesman suspected of drunk driving is stopped and clubbed by two Malibu Station sheriff’s deputies. The motorist’s legs are shattered. The county pays $500,000 to settle the salesman’s lawsuit.

Violent encounters like these between Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and people they confront while on patrol have cost taxpayers millions of dollars and forced the department to repeatedly defend itself against allegations of brutality.

In the last year, 151 excessive-force lawsuits were filed against the Sheriff’s Department, a total estimated to be nearly double that of five years ago. Over a three-year period ending in September, 1989, such cases cost the county $8.5 million in major settlements and jury awards, including a $1.75-million settlement last year, a Times review found.

Some deputies are named repeatedly in such lawsuits, according to an examination of court records. Half the deputies involved in major cases had been sued in the past for alleged brutality. One training officer was sued 10 times in 10 years. Another officer, later promoted to sergeant, was named in five suits that resulted in payments totaling about $280,000.

Disputes over the use of force have strained relations between the Sheriff’s Department and some of the neighborhoods it patrols. Leaders in the black, Latino, Korean, Samoan and gay communities have accused sheriff’s officers of acts of unjustified violence, including five fatal shootings in the last 18 months.

Meanwhile, critics inside and outside the department complain that administrators have done little to identify abusive deputies and take them off the street.

“We have deputies using a lot of force frequently,” said former Sheriff’s Lt. Patrick Maher, who retired in August after 23 years in the department and who now works as a consultant on peace-officer training.

Maher, a veteran watch commander, said he complained to superiors for years that deputies routinely were striking suspects on the head with nightsticks and flashlights, which police training experts say should be done only in life-and-death situations. Maher argued in a 1986 memo that department policies were “insufficient to adequately direct deputies in the use of force and to prevent serious injury or death.”

Sheriff Sherman Block said in interviews that department policies are adequate to prevent and punish the use of unnecessary force, and he dismissed Maher as a frequent complainer about departmental practices.

The sheriff attributed the rise in excessive-force lawsuits to an increasingly litigious and violent society. He said that inner-city problems such as gangs, drugs and random shootings have spread to outlying communities patrolled by his 7,000-officer department.

Block said deputies who are sued repeatedly are not necessarily guilty of misconduct. “We’re not going to sacrifice deputies at the altar of public relations,” said Block, a 34-year veteran who has headed the nation’s largest sheriff’s department since 1982. “We’re going to deal with (complaints) as they arise.”

Excessive force has been a concern of the department, Block acknowledged, since a 1985 internal study cited it as one of several ethical problems that needed attention. The study led to a $300,000 program requiring every deputy to attend a daylong seminar on ethics, including techniques to avoid violent confrontations, Block said.

Block also acknowledged that some violence-prone officers have been lured off the street with better jobs, such as coveted investigative or high-technology communications work. This, he said, has led other deputies to grumble, “Well, geez, I guess . . . you have to go out and get enough complaints” to get desirable jobs.

But Block said the offending officers can seldom be fired because union agreements protect their jobs except in the most extreme cases.

Richard Shinee, principal attorney for the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said most officers accused of excessive force are only responding to a rising level of violence against them.

“Occasionally, you’ll see somebody who may have overreacted or who lost his temper,” Shinee said. “But by and large, those are folks out there on the streets in very trying circumstances fighting for their own survival.”

The Sheriff’s Department generally has enjoyed a reputation for even-handed law enforcement. But several high-profile encounters in the last year and a half have raised questions about deputies’ use of force.

In some cases, routine incidents have escalated into violence. The January shooting of two Black Muslims erupted after a traffic stop by deputies. One man was killed and another wounded after they allegedly attacked the deputies and took a gun from one officer, investigators said.

Community activists reacted with angry protests. Block, noting the “heightened tensions,” advised his officers against taking “enforcement action in minor incidents” in black neighborhoods.

Protests also arose when an unarmed black man was fatally shot in his own driveway by deputies who mistook him for a robbery suspect; when a videotape showed that a deputy responding to a noise complaint repeatedly clubbed a guest at a Samoan bridal shower; when, in the Antelope Valley, a black woman, a Latino man and an Asian student were fatally shot by deputies in separate incidents.

In another incident, a Korean student was shot to death in March, 1988, after a 15-mile chase that began when he ran a stop sign. Deputies said he attempted to run them down; Long Beach police disputed that account. The county has offered his parents a $1-million settlement.

In downtown rallies, civil rights groups have called for creation of an independent agency to investigate brutality claims.

“The Sheriff’s Department really needs to be put on the griddle,” said attorney Thomas Barham in an interview. Barham, a former sheriff’s lieutenant who now specializes in police misconduct cases, declared: “They are letting deputies go out into the community and beat people senseless and virtually nothing is happening to them.”

“I just don’t think the message is getting through (to deputies),” said Johnnie Cochran, a Los Angeles attorney who has represented both deputies and people who claim to be their victims.

The department, he said, has failed to show that it is serious about punishing deputies for excessive force.

Assistant Sheriff Jerry L. Harper disagrees. “I don’t think you’re going to find any deputy who’s going to say that . . . we are soft on discipline,” he said.

But Barham said the department does not do an “honest and forthright job” of investigating brutality complaints. Investigators frequently do not ask even obvious questions if the answers might implicate deputies, he said.

Jurors in a court case last July cast doubt on the department’s credibility when they awarded an East Los Angeles man $106,000 in damages stemming from a 1984 encounter.

Ben Chacon, then 25, suffered a fractured skull after Deputy Robert Armes hit him with his baton after a traffic stop. Armes said he struck Chacon because he refused to lie on the ground as ordered and raised his fist in a threatening manner.

Chacon was hospitalized. Sheriff’s investigators concluded that Armes had acted properly because Chacon--who later pleaded no contest to being under the influence of PCP--had posed a danger.

Last summer, after four years of litigation, a Superior Court jury rejected Armes’ version of the events.

“Our basic finding was that the deputy had used excessive force and there was a cover-up,” said jury foreman Richard Hudson. “The police report was simply written in such a way to validate what they did.

“Officers and witnesses who saw what happened were not mentioned in the report and, overall, there was a conspiracy by the county.”

Armes refused comment but his attorney, Carol Ann Rohr, said the officer pulled his baton because he smelled PCP on Chacon’s breath and that “changes the amount of force that is reasonable.” The deputy testified that he did not intend to hit Chacon on the head.

Rohr said that the verdict has been appealed.

One high-level source familiar with the department said misconduct investigations sometimes go nowhere because deputies are reluctant to testify against fellow officers, even those who may repeatedly use excessive force.

“Deputies who get caught in that situation are hoping that the department knows how heavy-handed or prejudiced (his partner) is and . . . will do something about it,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Some former sheriff’s employees are even blunter.

Robert Feliciano, a former sheriff’s sergeant who ran against Block in the 1982 election, has testified as an expert witness in several civil rights suits accusing deputies of brutality. Feliciano said that, as a deputy, he sometimes lied to department investigators in an effort to protect his partners. The practice, he said, was then commonplace.

Sheriff Block, while disagreeing that an actual “code of silence” exists, said the department is addressing the issue in workshops. In those sessions, deputies have said that they are bothered by the acts of other officers but maintain silence because “they think they’re out of step with everybody else,” he said.

“They’re learning that there is a lower tolerance for misconduct than (they) may have thought,” the sheriff said.

County authorities agree that excessive-force lawsuits against the Sheriff’s Department have increased--but they blame overzealous attorneys.

“There has been a stepping up (in excessive-force filings),” said Robert S. Ambrose, chief of civil litigation for the county. “Attorneys are simply getting individuals to file lawsuits in the hopes that they are going to get a large award.”

Documenting the extent of the increase is difficult. The Sheriff’s Department says it keeps no separate records of deputies who are sued for excessive force, or the outcome of those suits.

Until two years ago, the department maintained a card file listing lawsuits of all kinds against deputies. But that was declared obsolete and abandoned.

Now, the Los Angeles County counsel’s office is using a computer system to track lawsuits against deputies. But the system, in operation since last summer, does not separately tabulate suits charging excessive force.

Attorneys for the county estimate that about two-thirds of all suits filed against the Sheriff’s Department in any given year involve excessive force. To test this estimate, The Times reviewed all lawsuits filed in 1989 against the department and found that 151, or 66%, of the 228 suits alleged excessive force.

Applying the two-thirds rule of thumb to lawsuits in previous years, The Times estimated that excessive-force suits against the Sheriff’s Department have about doubled in the last five years.

When The Times compared the Los Angeles Police Department’s experience during 1989, it found a far lower percentage of excessive-force lawsuits. Of 288 suits reviewed, 141, or 49%, claimed excessive force.

Attorneys for the city said they have no way of telling whether that percentage has changed from past years. But if the ratio has held constant, it would mean that the number of such suits against the Los Angeles Police Department has declined by an estimated 13% over the last five years. During that period, the Police Department has had about 1,000 more officers than the Sheriff’s Department.

The Times review also found that excessive-force lawsuits were filed against the Sheriff’s Department last year at a higher rate.

About 22 such lawsuits were filed for every 1,000 deputies, while 18 were filed for every 1,000 Los Angeles police officers, according to court records and statistics from the county counsel.

How the Sheriff’s Department compares to other police agencies across the country is undetermined. Experts say there is no reliable way to make such comparisons because there is little useful data on the issue.

In its study, The Times found that excessive-force cases accounted for three-fourths of all major legal settlements and jury awards involving the Sheriff’s Department over a three-year period ending in September, 1989. The major payouts from these excessive-force cases--61 in all--ranged from $20,000 to $1.75 million, and totaled $8.5 million.

There are other ways to measure the extent to which deputies may be using excessive force. But Block and his aides said they could not or would not provide the necessary data.

For example, the department keeps records of general misconduct complaints filed by citizens and the department itself against deputies--a requirement of state law. But these are not categorized or tracked in a way that would tell department administrators when a deputy is accumulating an unusual number of excessive-force complaints.

When The Times attempted to review these records to determine how many involved excessive force, the Sheriff’s Department refused to grant access. A spokesman said the records are confidential under state law.

When asked for a simple tally of the number of misconduct complaints alleging excessive force in recent years, the department said it was unable to comply. A spokesman said no separate count is kept of such complaints.

Even the question of how many deputies are disciplined each year for excessive force, and whether that number has increased or decreased, drew a blank. The department would not disclose the data, saying it was confidential.

Some other California police departments--including those in San Francisco and Oakland--have experimented with computer programs that warn administrators when repeated complaints are filed against a single officer.

The Miami-Dade Police Department has gone a step further, tracking not only complaints and lawsuits by computer, but also requiring officers to file reports when they use even minimal force in making arrests. A computer issues a warning whenever the totals reach two complaints or three uses of force over three months--or four complaints and seven uses of force in a year.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department by reputation takes pride in putting aggressive deputies on the street.

“(Suspects) know if they get lippy they’re going to be taking some lumps,” said a deputy who worked inner-city patrol for years. “It’s just a general attitude indoctrinated from Day 1. . . . We don’t take (anything) out on the street. And (supervisors) are proud of it.”

But critics of the department say the aggressive behavior too often leads to unnecessary force, souring community relations and embroiling the department in lawsuits.

Some think that the case of Deputy Gary B. Hellman illustrates this style of law enforcement.

Until last year, Hellman, 49, was the silver-haired dean of patrol at the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station, where he has served 17 of his 21 years on the force. An officer who actively seeks out criminals, he has been held up as a role model for younger deputies sent to him for field training.

Hellman has been accused of excessive force in 12 lawsuits since 1972, including 10 suits in the last decade, according to court records. Six of the suits were dismissed and he was found not liable in the seventh. Four other suits have resulted in cash settlements totaling $160,500. One suit is pending.

Hellman has averaged one lawsuit every year and a half, about 30 times greater than the departmental average last year.

Last June, Hellman was taken off patrol and assigned to assault investigations. At the time, he was being sued in federal court for allegedly kicking a young man and striking him with a baton. That civil trial ended with a hung jury and was settled in February for $60,000.

In a brief hallway interview during the trial, Hellman said he is not overly aggressive, “but if taking control of a situation is aggressive, then I would count myself as aggressive.”

Although refusing to discuss Hellman specifically, Assistant Sheriff Harper said he thinks that an aggressive officer “by being out there in a radio car for many, many years is going to have more opportunities” for abuse complaints.

Such an officer, Harper said, “can still be rated outstanding and deemed worthy of a training officer.”

In fact, some deputies with a history of abuse complaints or lawsuits end up getting promotions, according to interviews and county documents.

Deputy Robert Crume was sued seven times between 1975 and 1985 as a patrolman, but was promoted in 1986 to sergeant. Five of the suits ended in county payouts of about $280,000, including $110,000 to a Whittier man for two physical encounters four years apart. The other two cases were dismissed.

In a Crume case settled in 1986 for $35,000, the deputy struck a 17-year-old Pico Rivera youth trespassing in an unfinished house. Nightstick blows to the youth’s abdomen resulted in removal of his spleen.

County lawyers concluded that there was “sparse justification” for striking Jaime Silva. Silva was 5-feet-7 and weighed 150 pounds, while Crume and his partner were each about seven inches taller and 60 pounds heavier, county lawyers noted in recommending the settlement.

Crume did not respond to a request for an interview.

Block said that as a matter of policy, he would not comment on any individual case.

When misconduct complaints are upheld by the department, the punishment usually ranges from a reprimand to suspension. Firings are far less frequent.

Deputy Brian J. Stover, for example, drew a seven-day suspension without pay for an incident that grew out of a traffic stop in June, 1987.

Civil Service records give this account of the episode:

Stover pulled over a Jeep after the driver made an illegal turn outside a Temple City gym. The vehicle had no license plates and the driver, Robert Nelson, had no valid driver’s license or car registration.

When Stover attempted to pat him down, Nelson pushed the deputy’s hand away. Stover drew his revolver, pointed it at Nelson, told him to sit down, then kicked him. As a crowd gathered, Stover tried to handcuff Nelson, who pulled his hand away. Stover hit him with his baton, handcuffed him and continued to club him.

At his Civil Service hearing, the 5-foot-7 Stover said he acted out of fear for his safety against Nelson, a body-builder who stood over six feet tall. But the hearing officer said that while Nelson was “not cooperative, at most, he was passively resistant.”

Although Nelson suffered only minor injuries in the incident, department officials concluded that Stover’s use of force was unjustified. And they disclosed that the deputy previously had been counseled about angering people to such a degree that he felt compelled to use force against them.

Stover declined to comment.

Firings for abusive behavior sometimes become a prolonged process, as illustrated by the case of Deputy Ricki L. Jackson.

When the Sheriff’s Department moved to fire Jackson in 1988, it accused the seven-year veteran of beating a handcuffed man with his flashlight outside a Santa Fe Springs bar and striking another bound suspect so hard that a rib was broken.

The department noted that Jackson already had been suspended three times over a five-year period for excessive force--twice for assaults on motorists and once for abusing a county jail inmate.

But it was not until 1989, after a series of county Civil Service Commission hearings, that his firing was upheld. Now, the two injured men and a bystander who was arrested and then released are demanding damages.

“One of my clients’ biggest concerns is, what was Jackson doing out there on patrol when he already had a history of (excessive force)?” said attorney Michael Portner, who is representing the three.

The county has offered his clients a $105,000 settlement, Portner said.

Jackson’s attorney, Richard Shinee, argued in Civil Service documents that other deputies who committed similar offenses were merely suspended, and it was unfair to fire Jackson. To prove his point, he produced copies of disciplinary letters sent by the department to half a dozen other deputies. They included:

* A deputy suspended for 10 days in 1988 for hitting a theft suspect in the face and chest with a flashlight and kicking him while he was on the ground.

* A deputy suspended for seven days in January, 1988, after he repeatedly stomped on the ankle of a Central Jail inmate who was being restrained by five other deputies.

* A deputy suspended for 10 days in June, 1985, for using excessive force after stopping a suspected car thief. The deputy pulled the man’s hair, bloodied his nose and arrested him for obstructing and resisting a police officer. The deputy at first denied using excessive force, then recanted after learning that a security camera had captured the incident on videotape.

The most powerful sanction against deputies accused of excessive force is criminal prosecution. In Los Angeles County, it happens only rarely.

The reason, said Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner in an interview, is the level of proof required.

“An officer may have been negligent, may have been acting, as they say, out of policy . . . and, yes, the result can be wrong as well as tragic, but as a matter of law, it is not a crime,” Reiner said.

The evidence needed to uphold departmental charges against a deputy is much less than that required to support a criminal prosecution, Reiner said.

Still, in the last four years, the Sheriff’s Department has referred 26 excessive-force cases to Reiner’s office for review; five of them have been prosecuted. During the same period, the Los Angeles Police Department referred 36 cases; three have been prosecuted.

Reiner refused to discuss the specifics of any case rejected for prosecution.

But the 1984 beating death of a 54-year-old security guard from South Gate may illustrate the balancing act that prosecutors say they face in such cases.

Deputy Thomas Kirk traced William Sisoyev to his home and confronted him with an unpaid traffic ticket. A fight erupted, and Kirk repeatedly struck Sisoyev with a short, leather-covered baton called a sap, breaking his skull and killing him.

After a six-month investigation, a deputy district attorney, declaring his decision “a close” call, said he could not disprove Kirk’s claim that he had acted in self-defense. But the prosecutor’s report noted that Kirk was unmarked and there was little sign in the dead man’s home to indicate that a violent brawl had taken place.

The county closed its books on the Sisoyev case last June, paying his survivors $150,000 to settle their lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department. Kirk has since left the department.

Victims of excessive force, by contrast, often are charged with crimes--only to be cleared later when independent witnesses contradict the testimony of deputies.

In The Times’ study of excessive-force cases that led to large payouts by the county, most of the victims were initially charged with criminal violations. The charges, based primarily on assertions in police reports, usually involved resisting arrest or assault on an officer. But the majority of defendants ultimately were cleared.

In 1988, for example, the county paid $57,500 to settle lawsuits filed by a Bellflower husband and wife beaten by deputies during a ruckus outside a City of Commerce restaurant. The husband, Charles Porter, 58, was charged with assault but acquitted.

Porter said he never had been accused of anything more serious than a traffic violation until that day. He was preparing to leave the restaurant, on his way to his Moose lodge in Norwalk, when deputies arrived in response to a robbery alarm.

The deputies told Porter not to leave. Porter said that when he asked how long he would be detained, the deputy responded by angrily cursing him. He said that when he objected to the deputy’s use of profanity, he was struck in the face with a nightstick, knocked to his knees and clubbed 16 times.

Deputies testified that he was struck no more than six times and then only after a struggle of several minutes. Porter said he offered no resistance.

His wife, Georgia, said deputies hit her in the back with nightsticks after she threw herself across her husband’s body.

The robbery turned out to be a false alarm.

In addition to paying the Porters a settlement, the county also paid $12,500 to a witness who remembers screaming, “Stop those animals! They’re going to kill him!” while trying to get other deputies to intervene. The witness was jailed briefly and later sued the county for false imprisonment.

Porter said the experience changed his view that peace officers rough up only street criminals.

“It’s plain people, too,” he said. “All they have to do is open up their mouths the wrong way, say the wrong thing or make the wrong move, and they can get in just as much trouble as I did.”

STORIES BEHIND THE PAYOUTS Wilma Franklyn, 55, was shot in the stomach during a 1981 narcotics raid on her 60-acre ranch in Lake Sherwood. She claimed that deputies broke into her home unidentified, shot at her and finally fired dozens of rounds into a closet where she cowered. Officers said she fired first and continued shooting from the closet. She testified that she was dragged from the closet by her heels. Deputies found a drug operation at the ranch, but Franklyn was not linked to it. Jury award of about $2.4 million, then settlement of $1.75 million in July, 1989.

Robert Whealon, a Newbury Park salesman, was clubbed after being stopped for suspected drunk driving by Malibu Station Deputies Lewis Scott McAfee and Ronald Raul Gomez. Whealon’s legs were shattered. Both deputies were accused of undue force in three other incidents during the same four-month period in 1984, including the fatal shooting of an unarmed man that was settled for $40,000. McAfee has left the force. Settled for $500,000 in September, 1988.

Asmirez Ramirez of Duarte was shot twice in the stomach when Deputies George Markel and Joseph Gagliardi stormed into his garage in 1986 after reports of gunfire at the house. Deputies said they accidentally wounded Ramirez, who was unarmed, while shooting at another man who pointed a gun at them. Jury award of $450,000--an amount reduced to $150,000 by the judge. Settled in December, 1988, for $228,000 after an appeal.

O. Z. McGowan, 74, was wounded after he shot at a deputy who entered his bedroom during an early morning SWAT raid of the wrong house in 1983. McGowan’s 4-year-old grandson was in bed with him. McGowan’s daughter told investigators she was threatened and insulted racially while handcuffed in her nightclothes on her front lawn. Settled for $250,000 in August, 1988.

William Randall, a former movie studio grip, was allegedly kicked by Deputy Chester Mitchell for not promptly following instructions during a 1982 traffic stop in Marina del Rey. Randall had six back surgeries and was permanently disabled from injuries. Settled for $500,000 in July, 1988.

Luis Curiel and 19 family members and friends sued the county after 12 deputies broke up a quinceanera birthday celebration in 1985 for a 15-year-old girl in Lynwood. Seven party-goers claimed medical expenses of $15,000. Five of six who were arrested were criminally charged, but charges later were dismissed by the trial judge. Settled for $225,000 in May, 1988.

David Ferguson of Carson was punched and clubbed by Deputy Julian Castorena in 1981 after he called 911 asking for help in a family dispute. Ferguson suffered a fractured skull and brain hemorrhages that resulted in epileptic seizures. Officers said he was drunk, his phone calls were blocking emergency lines and that he resisted arrest. Settled for $325,000 in March, 1988.

Ezell Vance Jr. of Whittier was doing carpentry work on a house in the Athens area near Inglewood in 1985 when Deputy Steven Jaramillo followed a fleeing car thief into the home. Vance, mistaken for the thief’s accomplice, was struck and kicked for allegedly resisting arrest. Injuries included broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. Settled for $55,500 in February, 1988.

John Bradley, 24, was shot twice in 1985 when Industry Station Deputies Harold Chilstrom and Dennis Robinson, on a narcotics stakeout at a Rowland Heights motel, charged his car and opened fire with shotguns and revolvers. The officers wounded the unarmed man as he dove toward the floor of his car. Settled for $120,000 in December, 1987.

Jeong Wook Byun, a 22-year-old student and son of a South Korean movie director, claimed he was repeatedly kicked and beaten by Deputy Michael Duran at a Marina del Rey restaurant in 1986. Byun said he was an innocent bystander who was struck because of his nationality. Deputies had responded to complaints of an unruly crowd that included Koreans. Jury award of $65,000 in February, 1987.

John and Gail Quesenberry of La Verne and their 14-year-old daughter were returning from church during the Christmas holidays in 1984 when stopped for alleged erratic driving. They claimed that, after an exchange of words, Deputy Ed Teel threatened John Quesenberry with a nightstick, then flung his wife into the street, breaking her tailbone. Teel said that he pulled his baton for defensive purposes when Quesenberry refused to sign a traffic ticket and to be handcuffed. The couple were acquitted of assault and resisting arrest charges. Settled for $30,000 in September, 1986.

SOURCE: State and federal court documents and attorneys

BACKGROUND The Sheriff’s Department provides law enforcement services for about 2.2 million people in 37 cities and all unincorporated areas in Los Angeles County. About 7,000 officers work out of 21 stations and in five jails. Cities served are: Agoura Hills, Artesia, Avalon, Bellflower, Bradbury, Carson, Cerritos, Commerce, Cudahy, Diamond Bar, Duarte, Hawaiian Gardens, Hidden Hills, Industry, La Canada Flintridge, La Habra Heights, Lakewood, La Mirada, Lancaster, La Puente, Lawndale, Lomita, Lynwood, Norwalk, Palmdale, Paramount, Pico Rivera, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, Rolling Hills Estates, Rosemead, San Dimas, Santa Fe Springs, South El Monte, Temple City, Walnut, West Hollywood and Westlake Village.

SHERIFF’S LAWSUITS Chart shows that most lawsuits that end in large payments by the Sheriff’s Department result from citizens’ claims of excessive force. For 1989, payout figures are through Aug. 31.

Dollars in millions

MAJOR PAYOUT EXCESSIVE FORCE YEAR CASES AMOUNT CASES AMOUNT 1989 22 $3.51 18 $3.00 1988 28 $4.13 21 $3.19 1987 31 $4.36 17 $2.00 1986 8 $0.50 5 $0.40 1985 6 $0.47 1 $0.15

NOTES: Major payout cases are those with jury awards or settlements exceeding $20,000.

SOURCE: Compiled by The Times from state and federal court records and figures provided by the Los Angeles County Counsel.