Man Beaten by Deputy Is Awarded $378,000 in Damages

A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury has ordered the Sheriff’s Department to pay $378,000 to a man who was beaten by a deputy in South Los Angeles nearly five years ago.

The jury found that the deputy violated 51-year-old William Mitchell Bell’s civil rights during an incident on 112th Street at Normandie Avenue in July 1993. Bell’s lawyer contended that the plaintiff, an African American, was approached by the deputy and his partner, both of whom are white, because Bell was driving a late-model Cadillac and looked “suspicious.”

In addition to the $378,000, the Sheriff’s Department has also agreed to pay $70,000 to cover Bell’s attorney fees and court costs.

According to civil rights attorney Neil Fraser, who represented Bell, his client had parked his 1987 Cimarron along the road to assist a minister friend--Herbert Hoover Young--whose motor home had broken down. As Bell walked across the street to check on Young, Fraser said, he was spotted by the deputies, who ordered him to stop. When he asked why he was being detained, Fraser said, one of the deputies struck him in the nose, breaking it.

He was then pushed to the ground, handcuffed and kicked, the attorney said. “I think they picked on him because he was a black guy driving a late-model Cadillac in South-Central Los Angeles,” Fraser said. “Without any real cause, they decided to roust him.”

The attorney representing the Sheriff’s Department, principal deputy county counsel David Gonzales, presented a different account of the incident during his unsuccessful defense of the deputies. He said that because of the way Bell had parked his car--five feet from the curb with the lights left on and the windows rolled down--the deputies believed he was driving a stolen vehicle. When they stopped him, he became irate, Gonzales said.

“Our position is he was the aggressor, resulting in the physical contact that caused his nose to be broken,” Gonzales said.

But the jury on Wednesday decided it believed Bell’s version of the events, finding the deputy who broke his nose liable in the case. In exchange for Bell’s agreement not to pursue punitive damages, the Sheriff’s Department will not appeal the verdict.

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During the seven-day trial, Fraser relied heavily on the testimony of Young and his wife, both of whom witnessed the incident from their broken-down motor home. “The interesting thing was the cops weren’t aware of their presence,” Fraser said, adding that the witnesses corroborated his client’s story.

Gonzales acknowledged that the witnesses’ accounts were problematic for the department’s case. The sheriff’s lawyers had offered to settle the matter for $300,000, but Bell refused. Originally, he had sought more than $1 million as compensation for his injuries.

Fraser said his client has undergone surgery to repair his broken nose. “He has had extreme breathing problems,” the lawyer said. Bell also suffered a broken rib and “various contusions and abrasions” in the incident, according to Fraser, who said his client “has been in continued pain since then.”

Bell declined to comment on the verdict.

Sheriff’s officials say that in the years since the Bell incident they have taken steps to reduce deputies’ use of excessive force.

According to a report prepared by special counsel Merrick Bobb, the number of new excessive force cases filed against the department, in fact, has declined. During fiscal year 1992-93, for example, 88 lawsuits alleging excessive force were filed, compared to 61 in 1996-97.

“I know we are doing better,” said acting Assistant Sheriff Rachel Burgess. “A lot of the cases that we are involved in are four and five years old.”

She added: “Since March of 1997, we have gone to trial five times on excessive force cases. Bell was the first one that we have lost.”