From [HERE] Long Beach has agreed to pay almost $2.5 million to a pair of cousins who sued the city after police officers were filmed hitting them repeatedly with batons during an arrest in 2010.
Last year, the two men, Miguel Contreras and Miguel Vazquez, won an excessive force lawsuit against Long Beach. A jury awarded them more than $1.6 million.
A settlement approved by the City Council on Tuesday adds about $900,000 to cover attorneys’ fees and other costs, according to the men’s lawyers.
The deal avoids any litigation over the fees and ends any possible appeal of the jury’s verdict, according to the attorneys.
The arrest in question happened on the early morning of Nov. 27, 2010, as Vazquez and Contreras returned from The Falcon bar in Long Beach.
The violent altercation left Vazquez with a broken finger and Contreras with nerve damage and multiple fractures in his elbow, according to their lawsuits.
“(Contreras) can’t extend his elbow,” said attorney David McLane, who represented Vazquez. “He was severely damaged and suffered from PTSD as a result of this incident. It changed his life.”
During the trial in October, jurors decided that Long Beach police Lt. David Faris, who was a sergeant at the time, and Officer Michael Hynes used excessive force when they beat Contreras and Vazquez with batons.
It’s difficult to make out the baton blows in a dark, grainy video filmed from a nearby apartment, but the audio includes yelling and cries of pain from the cousins as the cops continually assault them after they are subdued.
Vazquez can be heard moaning when an officer steps on his hand, breaking his pinkie, McLane said.
In their lawsuits, Contreras and Vazquez said they’d just arrived at Vazquez’s apartment in the 1600 block of Broadway when Vazquez saw Faris and Hynes detaining a group of people that included a friend of Vazquez.
Vazquez’s lawsuit said that when he asked what was going on, one of the officers told him to go home and pushed him away.
In the recording, Vazquez can be heard saying, “Don’t [expletive] touch me.”
A man, identified in court documents as Faris, responds, “I will touch you anytime I want to touch you. You understand that?”
Long Beach’s attorneys argued that Vazquez slapped the officer’s hand away and both cousins refused to back off, so officers used force.
“Our contention was and is that the officers acted reasonably and lawfully,” Long Beach Deputy City Attorney Howard Russell said in October after the verdict.
Vazquez’s lawsuit claims police continued hitting him while he was on the ground, and Contreras contends one officer blindsided him, striking him more than a dozen times with a baton.
After deliberating, jurors awarded $1.25 million in damages to Contreras and another $375,000 to Vazquez.