Public Domain
By The Vanguard Staff
LOS ANGELES, CA – A man shot by a projectile and badly wounded by a Los Angeles Police Dept. officer was awarded $860,000 by the LA City Council last week –his lawyers said it’s a “bellwether case” because it also preserves a jury verdict that will “make it easier to hold police officers accountable for harming protesters in the future,” according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.
“Protester Deon Jones filed a federal lawsuit in December 2020 alleging that LAPD Officer Peter Bueno individually and the city as a whole were both liable for his injuries” in a December 2020 protest over the murder of George Floyd, the Times wrote.
“This is going to be a bellwether case, I am proud and relieved that this multi-year fight for justice has concluded in such a momentous, historic outcome,” said Orin Snyder, one of Jones’ attorneys, in a statement to The Times.
The LA Times said Jones charged Officer “Bueno violated Jones’ constitutional rights by shooting him and that the city and the LAPD had also done so by failing to establish proper crowd enforcement protocols, failing to ensure Bueno was properly trained on rules governing the use of force and failing to discipline Bueno for violating those rules.”
The city escaped a trial by agreeing to settle with Jones for $860,000.
LAPD maintained there was “insufficient evidence to prove Bueno shot Jones, and Bueno denied doing so,” claiming he “only remembered shooting someone else who had thrown a water bottle at him. Top brass including Chief Michel Moore concluded in 2021 that there was insufficient evidence to conclude any wrongdoing on Bueno’s part,” wrote the Times.
But, “Jones’ legal team managed to convince a jury otherwise by scouring hours of video, locating the shooting in question, and using an expert video analyst to trace Jones’ movements through the crowd that day and place him directly in the line of fire.”
The jury, in March, awarded Jones $375,000 that included $125,000 in punitive damages to the officer, agreeing Bueno did shoot Jones and violated his 4th Amendment rights, said the Times.
However, the $860,000 settlement approved by the council is all Jones will receive, not in addition to the $375,000 the jury awarded, according to records reviewed by The Times.
The Times reported “Multiple reviews of the Floyd protests in L.A. have already found crucial operational and tactical mistakes by the department as well as a failure in preceding years to adequately train and prepare for such large, citywide demonstrations.”
City attorneys maintained that it is unclear whether Bueno shot Jones, who was shot in the face with a hard-foam LAPD projectile while he was in a crowd peacefully protesting.
Law enforcement has been caught lying in this case. Black lives truly do matter!