Santa Ana to Settle 3 Police-Related Claims for $68,000 : Compensation: In one case, a 5-year-old boy was handcuffed and questioned. The other three people suffered physical injuries.

The City Council decided this week to settle for $68,000 three claims against police, including one case in which a 5-year-old boy was handcuffed and questioned when he was suspected of starting a small garage fire.

In closed session Monday, the city agreed to pay the boy’s family $13,000 as a result of a 1986 incident in which police handcuffed him and allegedly attempted to coerce a confession, family attorney William A. Snyder said. The boy, who was 5 at the time, suffered emotional trauma and required counseling after the questioning, Snyder said.

Although fire investigators later determined that another boy started the blaze, police officials never apologized for the incident, Snyder said.

“If the city would have made a more vigorous effort to deal with the parents earlier, this never would have happened,” he said. “It just shows insensitivity to the abuse by police officers. They would have avoided a $13,000 payout.”

City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said the city does not keep statistics on how much it spends on police-related claims, but added that this week’s settlements are not unusual in size or number. Such claims make up about half of the 250 to 300 cases pending against the city at any given time. “Every time somebody gets arrested, they sue,” he said.

The city also authorized a $30,000 settlement for a man who alleged in a claim against the city that the police used excessive force to subdue him after a domestic dispute. Cooper said Scott Milakovich resisted arrest and was cut when he and two officers scuffled. Although the city has authorized the settlement, Milakovich was not immediately available to say whether he would accept it.

The city also approved a $25,000 settlement to two men who were injured as they rode in the back seat of a police car. In the 1989 incident, the two men--who were handcuffed and unrestrained by seat belts--were thrown into a wire mesh separating them from the front seat when the car hit a parking divider, the attorney for the two men said.

One of the men, Behmans Tabrizzi, suffered neck, back and facial injuries, including a severely cut nose that required two surgeries to repair, attorney Charles J. Rossi said. The other man, Robert Herndon, also suffered facial cuts, Rossi said. Their medical bills totaled about $21,500.

Rossi said that he had not heard about the decision to offer a $25,000 settlement. However, he said that figure had been proposed by the city before. He suggested that it may not be acceptable.

“They’ve been willing to settle the case, but my clients and I don’t feel that the money is sufficient,” Rossi said. “If we’re talking about $25,000, my clients and I are still of that opinion.

“It’s an unfortunate accident, but it really does boil down to how much money does it take to compensate my clients and how much money it will take to put my clients back to how they were seconds before the accident took place.”