A judge has awarded $11.8 million to a Los Angeles Dodger fan who was blinded by a police projectile during the city’s 2020 World Series celebration.
The verdict reached Thursday ended Isaac Castellanos’ nearly six-year battle after he permanently lost sight in one eye when LAPD officers fired non-lethal weapons into a crowd where he was standing and struck him in the face.
Castellanos sued, saying he was overpowered. His lawyers are seeking to triple the jury’s award under state law that allows for increased damages in such cases.
As with most jury awards, the amount will likely be appealed and still needs approval from city leaders.
At the time of the incident, Castellanos was a 22-year-old student at Cal State Long Beach. He said he was quietly celebrating the Dodgers’ victory near Crypto.com Arena around 1 a.m. on Oct. 28, 2020, when the police entered the crowd.
LAPD officials said the officers were responding to violent gangs vandalizing downtown businesses. Castellanos and others accused the Ministry of taking the situation seriously, which they say is peaceful.
Apart from the emotional stress, the loss of vision has robbed Castellanos of a potentially lucrative career in sports, according to Pedram Esfandiary, one of his lawyers.
An avid gambler, he had won $20,000 in a gaming tournament a few months before the incident, his lawyers said.
Castellanos previously told The Times that he and his friends did not break the law and that he did not pose a threat to the police when he was beaten. He also said that he had never heard the police giving an order to disperse before the police rushed to attack the people who had their explosives drawn.
After six days of testimony and testimony, the jury deliberated for less than two hours before returning the sentence.
Esfandiary said evidence showed Castellanos was hit by a 37-mm “skip trace” explosive, which detonates solid foam designed to explode on the ground and hit protesters in the lower limbs in an attempt to disperse them.
Under LAPD policy, weapons must be used at close range, but Castellanos’ attorneys presented evidence that the rounds were fired about 145 feet away, enough distance to cause the projectile to travel up to eye level.
The attorney said he hopes this major verdict will wake up the department and the city as cases of non-lethal weapons are piling up.
“This was another nail in the coffin that must be stopped,” he said.
Starting in 2020, the department was forced to reduce the use of other projectile explosives
A federal judge issued an injunction in January against the use of 40-mm grenade launchers, but the LAPD has deployed other types of crowd-control weapons in subsequent protests.
At downtown protests protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policies, LAPD officers fired tear gas and fired nearly 1,400 rounds during a six-day period that began June 9, according to a report posted on the department’s website.
Police officials said in the report that the police responded with force after members of the crowd threw stones, bottles, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails at the police and set several cars on fire.
Officials have promised a thorough investigation into all uses of force.
