Driver Hit by Gunfire in Police Shootout Files Suit : Courts: The plaintiff, who was mistaken for a suspect, alleges negligence by Santa Ana and Fountain Valley.

A motorist who was hit five times during a police shootout last October has sued two cities, alleging that he was dragged injured from his car and handcuffed in the mistaken belief he was a suspect.

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In a lawsuit filed this week in Orange County Superior Court, Domingo Gonzalez alleges Fountain Valley and Santa Ana police used excessive force and were negligent in connection with the shootout near Mile Square Park. A 20-year-old man who allegedly opened fire on police was killed in the shooting.

Gonzalez, a 24-year-old plastics factory worker from Santa Ana, said he was on his way to play soccer with friends when the alleged gunman tried to get into his locked car while it was stopped at a red light.

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Anaheim attorney Fred R. Hunter, who is representing Gonzalez. “He was an innocent motorist.”

Representatives from the Fountain Valley and Santa Ana police departments said they could not comment on the case because of the pending lawsuit.

The shootout erupted a year ago today after employees at a Warner Avenue medical office reported a man waving a gun and making threats. The man, later identified as Anthony Rios of Santa Ana, then ran across the street to Gonzalez’s Nissan Sentra, which was stopped at Warner Avenue and Euclid Street, police said at the time.

Two Fountain Valley officers and a third from Santa Ana blocked the Nissan at the intersection and ordered Rios, who was crouching behind the car, to drop the gun, police said. Instead, Rios allegedly fired at least three rounds at one of the officers.

Hunter said police fired about 18 rounds in return and wrongly assumed that Gonzalez was a getaway driver, handcuffing the injured man before taking him to the hospital. Hunter said Gonzalez recalls one officer telling him, “Look, your friend over there is bleeding to death.”

The two men were complete strangers, Hunter said, and Gonzalez had locked his doors and ducked when Rios tried to get into his car.

“Had he not done that, he would have been killed,” Hunter said.

Gonzalez, who spent weeks in the hospital, recently returned to light duties at work, but he continues to have chest pains, shortness of breath and can only eat bland foods, his lawyer said.

Both cities previously rejected damage claims totaling $1 million filed by Gonzalez, who still has a bullet lodged near his heart from the shooting, Hunter said.

The lawsuit, which also alleges civil rights violations, seeks unspecified damages. In addition to naming both departments, the suit lists as defendants Fountain Valley Officers Chad Nichols and Michael Luke and Santa Ana Officer Tony Miranda.