$345,000 Award Expected in Police Beating at Party : Courts: Judge’s ruling culminates five years of legal wrangling and a two-month trial. Police defend the officers’ actions at a baptismal celebration in Arleta.

A Superior Court judge has awarded $345,000 to 26 party-goers who alleged that they were beaten up without cause by Los Angeles police officers as they attended a baptismal celebration in Arleta, lawyers said.

After five years of legal wrangling and a two-month trial with more than 50 witnesses, Judge Richard Montes has ruled for the plaintiffs. Police officials Tuesday defended the officers involved, saying they acted properly and that some officers were injured by party-goers.

Men, women and children were clubbed or otherwise assaulted by officers who ordered them to leave the house after responding to neighbors’ complaints of a noisy party in April, 1989, said Leon P. Gilbert, a Woodland Hills lawyer who represented the plaintiffs. He called it the worst example of police brutality he had seen in years of representing people in such cases.

At least 11 party-goers were treated for injuries at San Fernando Valley hospitals after the incident. Six, including two brothers who owned the house, were arrested on charges that were later dropped, according to Gilbert and court testimony.

Photographs taken by a family member after the party showed people with missing teeth and bruised shoulders, arms and legs.

Foothill Division police officers also were injured, police spokesmen said, as they tried to clear out a house packed with belligerent people. Police said relatives of those being arrested jumped them as they tried to haul suspects away.

Montes’ issued his decision in an order from the bench March 10. Although he has yet to sign the final judgment, attorneys for both sides said Tuesday that they have accepted this ruling as the judge’s final decision and the signing as a formality. The Los Angeles city attorney’s office--which defended the officers, the Los Angeles Police Department and city officials named in the complaint--and the judge refused to comment until the city decides whether to appeal.

“This shows that the system works, that people who really have been taken advantage of by police authority still have the ability to obtain some type of justice by suing the city,” Gilbert said. Police Capt. Val Paniccia, commanding officer of Foothill patrol officers at the time of the incident, said the verdict shows it is fashionable for people to sue the police with false allegations of brutality, and for juries and judges to award them damages.

“I’m sorry the judge made the decision he did, but that’s because he didn’t believe the facts,” Paniccia said. “In my opinion the officers were totally doing their jobs and nothing else.”

Paniccia, now commanding officer at the LAPD’s West Valley Division, said one officer lost a tooth in the incident and that other officers were punched and hit by people who refused to disperse.

Witnesses said that about 30 officers came to the house in the 9800 block of Mercedes Street in Arleta about 10:45 p.m. April 1, ordered that the music be turned down and told the crowd to disperse. More than a dozen people attending the party lived at the house, and several dozen more were guests.

According to testimony, the music was turned down after police arrived. But the police ordered everyone to disperse and began forcing them out, Gilbert said. Officers formed lines outside the front door of the house, beating people as they tried to leave, said Gilbert and some of the witnesses and party-goers.

“They are having a baptismal party to celebrate and the police come in like storm troopers and force them all out of their house,” Gilbert said. The city attorney’s office accepted the judgment. “Based on the number of plaintiffs and the number of allegations, I found the award was reasonable,” said Deputy City Atty. Ellen Fawls, the chief defense lawyer.

She said the judge did not find that any of the officers acted with malice, and thus did not award punitive damages. “As far as who hit who, I don’t think it was clearly established as to whether it was intentional,” she said.

But the judge determined that the police violated the party-goers’ civil rights by acting too aggressively to shut down the party, and so the officers were responsible for the injuries that followed, she said.

Rosario Guillen was awarded $50,000 for injuries suffered as he bent over to help a young cousin who fell, the lawyer said. “Some cop whacked him with a baton, and knocked his two front teeth out.”

The rest of the money, if the city pays or loses on appeal, will be divided among the other plaintiffs.