In April, the city of Santa Clara paid $5.3 million to avoid trial and settle an excessive-force lawsuit in the 2017 police shooting death of Jesus Geney Montes, who was experiencing a psychiatric crisis he was killed. “Jurors are holding officers accountable for shooting unarmed people who are not an immediate threat of death or great bodily injury to the officers.” Related ArticlesĬalifornia airport cop arrested after allegedly touching woman, brandishing gun at bar “We’re hoping we can lessen the number of shootings of unarmed people by the police,” Leaños said. Leaños, who represented Gomez alongside Southern California-based attorney Dale Galipo, said he hopes the verdict signals a new level of scrutiny of police shootings compared to the past. Gomez, who is now 28, was awarded $250,000 for past economic damages, and $250,000 for past pain and suffering and emotional distress. Leaños rejected the explanation given during trial that events unfolded too rapidly for the officers to start recording, noting that the cameras can be turned on with a quick button press.īesides the excessive-force finding, the federal jury determined that Fachko and Gomez were each 50% responsible for Gomez’ injuries. The two officers did not activate their body-worn cameras during the traffic stop or the events that ended in the shooting. He later pleaded no-contest to charges of auto theft and resisting a police officer’s orders, but a charge for assault with a deadly weapon was dismissed. Gomez was hit several times on his left side but survived his injuries. Gomez’s car hit the police vehicle positioned behind him. Gomez asserted in his lawsuit that he did not realize until the last second that they were police vehicles, and contends that he reversed his car to avoid colliding with a vehicle he thought was cutting him off. The two officers, driving separately, used their vehicles to box in Gomez’s vehicle and cut off an escape path. Fachko and another officer said that they spotted a car matching the description on El Camino Real, and sought to stop it near Scott Boulevard. The jury didn’t believe the officer was in harm’s way at the time of the shooting.”Īuthorities say the shooting occurred after Santa Clara police received a law-enforcement bulletin about a vehicle that was reported stolen in Sunnyvale. “(The officer) said he thought he was going to be ran over, but physical evidence doesn’t support that. “There were no shots through the windshield,” Leaños said in an interview Monday. San Jose-based attorney Jaime Leaños, who represented Gomez in the federal civil rights lawsuit, contends that ballistics evidence showing that Fachko fired through the driver’s side window of Gomez’s car helped convince jurors that the officer was out of the car’s path. In doing so, jurors apparently rejected the claim by Fachko that Gomez was trying to run him over. 21, 2017 confrontation with a then-24-year-old Omar Gomez. 2 civil verdict determined that Santa Clara Police Officer Jordan Fachko was liable for excessive and unreasonable force and negligence during the Oct. SANTA CLARA - A federal jury has ordered the city of Santa Clara to pay $500,000 to a man who was shot and wounded by police during a traffic stop four years ago, after finding that an officer used excessive force when he opened fire, according to court records and attorneys.
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