A jury awarded the daughter of a man killed during a 2019 encounter with the Los Angeles Police Department in Van Nuys $13.5 million last week after finding two officers used excessive force while lying on top of him for more than four minutes.
The two officers only got off of the 50-year-old Jacobo Juarez Cedillo after he appeared to lose consciousness while pinned to the ground in the 7200 block of Woodman Avenue on April 8, 2019, according to multiple videos of the incident.
More than 10 minutes later, with Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics looking on, Cedillo suddenly appeared to wake back up and writhe on the ground. For about three more minutes, the officers resumed pinning Cedillo, with one pressing his knees into the man’s back and holding his head down as the paramedics prepared a gurney for him.
The second instance of officers pinning Cedillo, captured via the dashboard camera of an LAPD cruiser that arrived at the scene after the initial arrest, was played for the jury during the three-day trial that ended Friday, Oct. 13. The footage was not included in LAPD’s initial video release of Cedillo’s arrest, which began when the two officers were called for a report of a man lying in the gas station’s driveway.
Cedillo died five days later in a hospital. The coroner’s office found Cedillo died from a combination of loss of blood flow to his brain, cardiopulmonary arrest and the effects of methamphetamines in his system. However, his cause of death remained undetermined.
The jury last week agreed the two officers, Dustin Richmond and Joseph Hunt, caused Cedillo’s death through the use of excessive force. They also faulted the city of Los Angeles for failing to train the officers in the risks associated with pinning him in a prone position, leading to what’s known as positional asphyxia.
About a year after Cedillo’s death, George Floyd would die in a similar manner while being held on the ground by police in Minneapolis. A recording…
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