Orange County Settles Suit by Jailed Strikers

Nearly a decade after the largest mass arrest in Orange County history, county supervisors have paid $280,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by more than 100 laborers jailed during a bitter strike by drywall workers.

The settlement--the highest civil rights payout against the Sheriff’s Department in years--closes the final chapter in a legal saga involving the 1992 detention of a convoy of drywallers accused of conspiring to kidnap replacement workers.

Deputies jailed 153 of the strikers. But within weeks, the charges were reduced or dropped. The strikers went on to win their labor dispute and sued the county, charging that deputies violated their civil rights.

Under the settlement, which was finalized earlier this year, each drywaller received about $1,200. The case will have cost taxpayers more than $600,000 when all lawyer fees are totaled.

The Sheriff’s Department did not admit any wrongdoing. But in a letter to supervisors, Sheriff Mike Carona acknowledged that some strikers did not receive hearings to determine whether there was enough evidence to keep them in jail.

The close of the case drew mixed reactions from the laborers. They expressed satisfaction that the county finally compensated them, but many said it was not enough.

“They treated us like criminals during this whole thing,” said Israel Espinoza, who was jailed for nine days before criminal charges against him were dropped. “I did nothing wrong. . . . What we went through is worth a lot more money.”

Antonio Vazquez, 64, who spent nearly a week in jail along with his two sons, said the $1,200 is too little, too late.

“In reality, we’re not very satisfied. It took so long for it to be resolved, and this was all we could get,” he said. “I wasn’t the only one who suffered. My wife also had to go through a lot of anxiety because of this.”

In settling the case, sheriff’s officials told county supervisors that they had altered detention policies to avoid repeating what happened to the strikers.

But lawyers for the drywallers question whether the department has done enough to prevent deputies from conducting similar mass arrests.

Drywall workers, who install the plasterboard that forms the inner walls of most new houses, went on strike in June 1992 for higher wages and a union contract. Amid rising tensions between strikers and crews still at work, about 150 strikers arrived at a Mission Viejo construction site that July 2 to stage a work protest.

Construction company officials complained that scores of strikers ran onto the site, stole tools and bundled a group of replacement workers into their cars and drove off with them, authorities said.

When deputies stopped the convoy of strikers driving away, about half a dozen replacement workers said they had been forced off the building site and were not allowed to return. But unable to decide which strikers took part in the alleged abductions, deputies decided to arrest every striker at the scene, accusing them of a conspiracy.

Mass Arrest of Strikers Called Outrageous

“It was outrageous,” said Peter A. Schey, a lawyer for the strikers and president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. “You cannot arrest a group of 150 people just because you cannot figure out which five or 10 actually committed a crime.”

In jail, strikers said, they were forced to sleep on a concrete floor. Some alleged that they were pushed, kicked and slapped by jail deputies, according to court records. Federal immigration officials deported at least a dozen of the men after checking their legal status when they arrived at the jail, Schey said.

In the following weeks, charges against 70 of the strikers were dropped for lack of evidence. About 70 more pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace, though some said they did so only to get out of jail. About a dozen pleaded guilty to more serious charges, including assault and battery. None was charged with kidnapping.

Despite being released, Espinoza said, some strikers were left shaken by the experience. And for some, he said, the arrests broke their resolve to fight on.

“Many men,” Espinoza said in Spanish, “didn’t want to continue the strike for fear of getting arrested again.”

But the arrests inspired others to fight harder, and ultimately galvanized support for the strike. By the end of the year, construction companies had agreed to accept most of their demands.

Weeks later, 105 of those arrested filed a legal claim against the county, each demanding more than $70,000 for pain and suffering allegedly caused by their detention.

In the letter to county supervisors, Carona said jail policies have been changed to ensure that all inmates receive timely hearings. Under the new procedures, he wrote, deputies will call in extra judicial officers to review evidence against inmates involved in mass arrests.

But the strikers’ lawyer said the new policies fail to address what lies at the heart of the claim. Mass arrests are almost always unconstitutional, Schey said, and deputies need training on what sort of evidence they need to justify arresting large groups.

Instead, he said, the new policies only help deputies “process people illegally arrested a little more efficiently.”

But sheriff’s officials said the new rules will streamline jail procedures if deputies ever decide to make a mass arrest.

“Deputies are out there to maintain peace and order,” said Assistant Sheriff George Jaramillo. “If a deputy makes a decision that 150 people need to go to jail to provide for that, then we have to back that person up.”

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Times staff writer Daniel Yi contributed to this report.