Latino Family Awarded $4.5 Million in Bell Gardens Police Beating Case

BELL GARDENS - Two members of a Bell Gardens family who said police beat them at a Halloween costume party in 2005 have been awarded a $4.5 million civil rights judgment, their attorneys said in remarks published today.

Gerardo Cazares, 30, and his father-in-law, Manuel Moreno, 46, had alleged that Bell Gardens officers who responded to a complaint of loud music at the party beat them without provocation, shot them with pepper spray and fired a beanbag gun at such close range that the older man was left with a permanent chest scar, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"Mr. Cazares was repeatedly kicked, punched, hit with batons and then shot in the back with a beanbag gun," attorney Glen T. Jonas told The Times. "Mr. Moreno comes outside ... they grabbed his arms like a crucifixion and shot him in the chest with the beanbag gun. He drops to the ground thinking he has been really executed. Then he realizes he is alive because he is being beaten by batons."

At the conclusion of a federal civil rights trial Friday, jurors ordered the Bell Gardens Police Department and five officers to pay the men $3.2 million in general damages and $1.3 million in punitive damages.

Neither Bell Gardens police officials nor attorneys on the case returned the newspaper's telephone calls seeking comment.

The incident occurred Oct. 30, 2005, as police tried to shut down a Halloween party in the 5700 block of Cecelia Street, according to Times. The city insisted that police officers acted appropriately and that the two men attacked officers. [MORE]