Ex-Officer Gets Prison in Civil Rights Case
A former Los Angeles police officer was sentenced to five months in federal prison Monday for violating the civil rights of a man he and his partner falsely arrested in 1995.
Edward Patrick Ruiz, 37, will serve an additional five months under home detention. His former partner, Jon Paul Taylor, 28, was sentenced last year to 200 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $3,000 fine.
Taylor was a probationary officer working under Ruiz’s supervision in the 77th Street Division when they arrested Victor Jerome Tyson on a weapons possession charge.
The two officers testified that they saw Tyson toss a revolver to the ground during a foot chase. Midway through Tyson’s trial, a city prosecutor dismissed the case because of conflicts in the officers’ stories.
An FBI investigation resulted in misdemeanor charges.
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