It was a stakeout gone bad, featuring jumpy police officers, human traffickers, a roughed-up federal agent, and a multimillion-dollar twist of an ending, reports the Los Angeles Times. Sergio Lopez, an undercover U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, was tracking smugglers in 2006 when police officers in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista pulled him over.
A Mexican gang had been kidnapping residents, sometimes by posing as law enforcement officers. "What [] are you doing speeding through my city?" one officer asked Lopez. Lopez, showing his badge, tried to explain. The officers handcuffed Lopez and forced him to the ground. Lopez sued, and yesterday was awarded $2.2 million by a San Diego jury that decided some of the five officers had assaulted and battered him. "We believe our officers and supervisors acted appropriately, [] under suspicious and dangerous circumstances," Chula Vista police spokesman Bernard Gonzales said after the verdict.
Posted by elizabeth
Thursday, April 15, 2010 05:11
I think the truth should be told about how officer Lopez did act when stopped and were he really was.
Posted by M. Nichols
Thursday, March 11, 2010 11:38
The $2.2 M does not represent the cost of this event; it simply represents the jury’s award.
The cost would be the sum of the jury’s award; the courts time + personnel salaries; lawyers, investigators, et al, wages p;us fees as well as direct + indirect fees AND the “opportunity” costs of all these resources being directed towards another law enforcement objective.