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By Olivia Biliunas, Bryan Miller and Darlin Navarrete
LONG BEACH, CA – Johnny Jackson suffered emergency medical complications on September 3, 2022 after surgery for prostate cancer when a Long Beach Police Officer “kneed the unresisting man in his groin multiple times during an arrest for driving with an expired registration tag,” according to the law firm of Pointer and Buelna LLP.
The law firm this week reported the Long Beach City Council approved a $300,000 settlement in a civil rights lawsuit filed against the officers for “using excessive and unreasonable force” in their encounter with Jackson in his driveway.
Footage captured from an officer’s body cam shows Jackson trying to grab pages from his doctor’s report blowing away by the wind, and, said his lawyers, “When he went to put his hand on the report, one of the officers jumped off Jackson’s porch, grabbed, pulled, and twisted his left arm, and told Jackson he was ‘about to get f**ked up.’”
Pointer and Buelna LLP added, “he was handcuffed, placed in a patrol vehicle, and cited for expired vehicle registration and purportedly resisting arrest.”
As seen on an officer’s body-cam, said the plaintiff lawyers, once in the vehicle Jackson reassures the officer he was willing to comply, the officer responds with “no you weren’t…I want you to know you’re lucky you didn’t get tased, you’re lucky you didn’t get pepper sprayed, or thrown to the ground.”
The complaint states the “Plaintiff’s urine was clear before and following his September 2, 2022, prostate surgery. After the Subject Incident, and as a result of the Subject Uses of Force, Plaintiff began urinating blood.”
Pointer and Buelna LLP add that, because of the diagnosis, the “Plaintiff presented to an emergency room for emergency medical care.” The complaint said Jackson was not only physically and emotionally damaged, but financially damaged as well.
Jackson filed for complaint demanding a jury trial for the following damages: Excessive Force in the violation of the Fourth Amendment, Municipal Liability, Battery, Negligence and Violation of the Tom Bane Civil Rights Act.
Jackson’s law team does not believe that the settlement is enough.
Civil rights attorney Michael Slater charged, “A civil settlement cannot, on its own, right the wrongs committed by the Long Beach Police Department against Mr. Jackson.”
Patrick Buelna said the city should “issue an apology to Mr. Jackson for the outrageous conduct of its officers,” and that “no one should have to endure such a humiliating and painful experience at the hands of what are supposed to be public servants.”
“Mr. Jackson has endured and will have to live with the physical pain and emotional harm caused by the excessive force LBPD used against him in front of his home and with his community bearing witness” added Slater.
Slater argued, “Mr. Jackson emerged victorious in his lawsuit against LBPD [which] has not only helped to restore, for Mr. Jackson, his dignity and pride; it is also evidence that no law enforcement officer is above the same laws Mr. Jackson, and we as citizens, have untrusted them with enforcing.”
