The family of an ex-soldier shot and killed by police last year is suing the officers involved and the city, claiming that the series of events leading to Steven Salguero's death involved hasty decisions and poor communication and ended the way it shouldn't have -- with two shotgun blasts.
The lawsuit alleges that police should have known his mental history, should not have broken down his door and rushed into the apartment, and at that, should have seen that he was no threat because as officers entered through the front other officers in the back of the apartment had sight of Salguero. [See lawsuit via link at bottom of this story.]
The lawsuit also argues that the department has a poor history in responding to calls involving mentally ill people, pointing to previous shootings and subsequent unfulfilled promises by the police leadership for policies, procedures and training.
The family is asking for unspecified punitive damages and the loss from future earnings, as well as attorney fees. The lawsuit was filed Monday.
Police spokesman Javier Sambrano said he could not discuss the specifics of the case, but did note that three investigations classified the shooting as justifiable and a grand jury declined to indict the officer who actually pulled the trigger.
In a news release sent out after the shooting the El Paso Police Department claimed that Salguero smeared blood on the back window, and threw bleach on the officers when they entered on the night of March 25, 2007. [link] In subsequent stories about the shooting, then-Police Chief Richard Wiles (who is named as a defendant in the suit and is now the sheriff-elect of the El Paso County Sheriff's Department) stated that police could not see inside the apartment because of the blood smeared on the window. [link]
He also claimed that officers were trained to handle such incidents.
However, the lawsuit (page 21) states that the department "has no Situational Model Training on how to deal with individuals experiencing paranoid schizophrenic (sic)."
The lawsuit also argues that the city had prior experience that should have led to better policies and procedures in dealing with people with mental illness. On page 18 and 19 of the lawsuit, two previous deadly shootings are referenced -- of Alfonso Villamil on Oct. 25, 1999, and Juan "Johnny" Gomez on May 1, 2003. In each case, Police Department leadership promised better training but never fully delivered, the lawsuit claims.
"The continued inability of employees of the City of El Paso to recognize and deal with paranoid schizophrenic individuals is a result of conscious and deliberate indifference by members of the El Paso Police Department and the City of El Paso," states the lawsuit.
Related Documents:
Carl Starr
November 19, 2008
University of Pennsylvania Law Review, November, 2005, 154 U. Pa. L. Rev. 157, REMEDYING A PARTICULARIZED FORM OF DISCRIMINATION: WHY DISABLED PLAINTIFFS CAN AND
SHOULD BRING CLAIMS FOR POLICE MISCONDUCT UNDER THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES Professor James Harrington has emerged as a leader of efforts to use an ADA-oriented approach to police misconduct litigation. He emphasizes that the ADA "provides relief in a great number of situations in which [section] 1983 does not," and in some situations bolsters the effectiveness of [section] 1983. (81) He has referred to the ADA as "the most comprehensive civil rights law passed by Congress," (82) protecting people with disabilities from discrimination based on disability, perceived disability, or association with the disabled. Harrington argues that the ADA is often more useful than [section] 1983 for police misconduct litigation generally. (98) Although it is difficult to prevail even with ADA claims in many areas of the law, (99) Harrington and other practitioners (100) note that courts have held that the ADA constitutionally may circumvent several of the technical obstacles to securing remedies for abuse at the hands of police officers mentioned above, while civil rights statutes do not. Because ADA actions lie against government entities rather than the individuals employed by them, the problems of qualified immunity, municipal immunity, and interlocutory appeal (101) do not come into play in ADA litigation. (102) Although the Supreme Court recently struck down the ability of the ADA to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity of states, (103) that decision has no bearing on substate government entities, such as municipalities or counties. (104) The ADA does not require proof of intentional discrimination if there is a showing of a practice that in fact discriminates...In Schorr, police officers shot and killed a mentally ill individual while attempting to involuntarily commit him. In determining that the improper training claim fell within the scope of the ADA, the Schorr court found that the alleged ADA violation did not occur during the violent [*25] encounter between the officers and the individual. Rather, it occurred "well before that day, when the
Defendant policy makers failed to follow policies to accommodate disabled individuals"...against the City for failing to properly train the officers: The alleged non-compliance with the training requirements of the ADA did not occur the day that the officers shot Ryan Schorr; it occurred well before that day, when the Defendant policy
makers failed to institute policies to accommodate disabled individuals such as Schorr by giving the officers the tools and resources to handle the situation peacefully. 123...As this Part will argue, the differences between ADA claims [*178] and claims under Section 1983 - in terms of elements, remedies, and various
immunities - suggest that, even if disabled plaintiffs should not replace their Section 1983 claims with claims under Title II, they should still plead both claims. 138 This Part will also explore the possibility of pleading claims under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 139 which is very similar to Title II in substance, 140 but allows for greater flexibility in overcoming potential defenses....A "totality of the circumstances" analysis does not necessarily apply to ADA claims - and countervailing governmental interests do not always come into play - because ADA claims do not implicate constitutional principles. With regard to claims that a government entity failed to train its police officers to recognize and appropriately handle individuals with disabilities, plaintiffs have faced fewer obstacles under Title II than they have under Section 1983. Whereas City of Canton v. Harris required a showing of deliberate indifference for
Section 1983 claims, 178 courts have not set a similar standard for succeeding on failure to train actions under Title II. 179 In fact, in the few cases in which plaintiffs have pleaded both ADA and Section 1983 claims for failure to train, courts have been more receptive to the ADA action.
David K
November 20, 2008
This is a pretty clear cut case of the law of nature. Throw bleach in the eyes of a guy holding a shotgun and you're gonna get split in half with buckshot pretty quickly afterwards.
The family, knowing this guy was crazy, should have had him locked up in a home where he couldn't get himself lead poisoned by El Paso's finest (and I do mean that).