Suit alleges racial profiling

An Oxnard man filed a federal lawsuit Thursday alleging that city police targeted him for questioning because he is black and then used excessive force to detain him.

There is no other good reason why Oxnard officers accosted Cornel Allen Jr. outside his home last year, dislocating one of his shoulders in the ensuing arrest, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Allen was taken into custody for resisting arrest in the Sept. 18, 2006, confrontation and spent the night in jail, the suit said. The Ventura County district attorney’s office later dismissed the charge and Allen has no criminal record, said Shawn Khorrami, Allen’s lawyer.

“The police said they were asking him about an expired tag on his car,” Khorrami said. “But it was pretty obvious that he was being picked on and he didn’t want to talk to them.”

Allen, 28, an occupational therapist for the Los Angeles Unified School District, is still traumatized by the incident and will require shoulder surgery, Khorrami said. He was unable to work for some time afterward, incurring lost wages and medical costs, he added.

Oxnard Police Chief John Crombach said he could not comment on the litigation. But race-based enforcement is “absolutely not tolerated” in Oxnard, Crombach said.

“We are an over-70% Latino population and our diversity is the greatest in Ventura County,” he said.

“Training is practically woven into everything we do.”

Officers Guy Hartson, Ed Castruita, Kevin Gormley and Scott Coe are named in the lawsuit, along with Crombach and the city of Oxnard. The suit alleges that Crombach and the city allowed racial profiling to occur by failing to properly train and supervise officers.

It also claims that Crombach failed to curb instances of excessive force by his officers, giving his tacit approval to such tactics.

The confrontation with Allen came as he was sitting in his vehicle with a friend, who is also African American, the lawsuit said. Police cruised past them twice, prompting Allen to leave his vehicle and enter his home nearby.

When two officers tried to question him, Allen refused, saying he was pressed for time and that he was not on parole or probation, according to the suit. The officers asked for his ID, and as Allen was attempting to retrieve it from his car, another pair of officers arrived and tackled him to the ground, the suit says.

His shoulder was dislocated during the scuffle, Allen claimed.

“Despite the plaintiff’s obsequious compliance with every request made of him and despite having offered no resistance, these three to four police officers battered [him] by striking his legs, shoulders and back while he lay on the ground,” the suit says.

The lawsuit opens a new debate on racial profiling and police tactics in Ventura County’s largest city, seven years after it struggled to deal with a spate of similar charges.

In 2000, a black Oxnard couple alleged that as they were returning from church, 12 gun-toting officers pulled them over for no reason other than their race.

But their federal lawsuit alleging racial profiling was thrown out two years later by a judge who found that the officers were properly investigating a stolen-vehicle case when they ordered Neil Skipwith to lie face down on the pavement in front of his wife and son.

In 2001, Oxnard police were involved in five fatal shootings, fueling claims of racial profiling and faulty tactics. All five of those killed were black or Latino. The district attorney’s office found that all of the homicides were justified.

After former Police Chief Art Lopez ordered increased training for the force, officer-involved shootings tapered off.

On Wednesday, however, Thomas Barrera, a 22-year-old auto burglary suspect, was shot and killed by an Oxnard officer.

Barrera, of Oxnard, was shot about 3:36 a.m. after a short chase by a police sergeant, authorities said. He was carrying a knife and had confronted the officer before he was shot, police said.

catherine.saillant@latimes.com