Lawyer: San Leandro to pay back $3.9M to settle civil legal rights lawsuit from guy brutally overwhelmed by police in 2019

A mentally disabled man who San Leandro police officers defeat with batons and Tased in 2019 will get $3.9 million from the city to settle a federal civil legal rights lawsuit, his lawyer declared Monday.

No criminal costs have been at any time submitted from 37-calendar year-previous Sorrell Shiflett after his come upon with law enforcement officers though he was strolling on a sidewalk. Shiflett has significant cognitive challenges from a severe brain personal injury endured in 2008 when he was the target of an armed robbery.

On Oct. 6, 2019, Shiflett was dressed as the popular anime character Naruto though going for walks in his neighborhood in advance of dawn with his cousin. Officer Ismael Navarro, responding to a suspicious individuals contact, arrived and began questioning the guys fellow Officer Anthony Pantoja soon joined him.

According to his lawyer, Shiflett consented to be searched, but grew frightened and took off managing when he was ordered to put his hands at the rear of his again. He ran mainly because he desired to get aid from his father to demonstrate his incapacity and the problems he was acquiring in being familiar with why police wished to detain him, lawyer Adanté Pointer stated.

Although Navarro and Pantoja gave chase, Shiflett stopped, turned close to and walked back to the officers to surrender, Pointer reported. He was as an alternative beaten with police batons and Tased, inspite of neither officer saying Shiflett experimented with to strike them. It was unclear the amount of pressure utilized and the amount of times he was Tased because Navarro failed to conserve his bodycam footage and Pantoja did not activate his digital camera till soon after the use of power.

The officers finally took Shiflett to a hospital, but the beating remaining him with two brain hemorrhages and a separated shoulder that required numerous surgical procedures.

“They then callously dumped him at a close by healthcare facility,” Pointer said. “Despite understanding how critically he was injured the Law enforcement Office inexplicably permitted the most vital objects of evidence, which includes two of the responding officers’ bodycam movies and a Taser log, to be ruined in an hard work to include up the officers’ misdeeds. They also failed to conduct a subsequent inside affairs investigation as essential by their own coverage.”  

The lawsuit accused the officers of excessive power, illegal seizure, and violating the People With Disabilities Act.

Shiflett was produced from custody right after police discovered how terribly he was hurt, according to Pointer. All charges from him had been dropped inside a number of weeks.

The City of San Leandro was contacted for a response to the settlement announcement and experienced not presented a person as of 3 p.m.