$13.5 million awarded to family of man who died after LAPD officers pinned him to the ground

A federal jury has awarded $13.5 million to the family of a man who was killed in 2019 after being detained and pinned to the ground by two Los Angeles police officers in Van Nuys, ruling that excessive force caused his death.

Nicole Juarez Zelaya, the daughter of Jacobo Juarez Cedillo, addressed reporters at a news conference outside the courthouse Monday, where a U.S. District Court jury unanimously ruled that the two officers’ force in her father’s death was unreasonable and excessive and that they were deliberately indifferent to his constitutional rights.

Zelaya filed the lawsuit against the officers and the city of Los Angeles in 2020, alleging violation of her father’s 4th Amendment rights through excessive use of force, civil rights violations and liability for inadequate training, among other allegations. The jury reached a decision in the case Friday.

Zelaya said she was thankful the jury members “were able to see that what happened was wrong, that my dad was stripped [of his] dignity the day that he was killed.”

“It’s very heartbreaking to be in this situation today,” she said. “It’s hard to think about what I’ve lost, in terms of losing my dad.”

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Los Angeles police released body-camera footage of an incident in which a man died after being detained by officers in Van Nuys. The daughter of Jacobo Juarez Cedillo is suing the city of L.A. in federal court, alleging her father was subjected to excessive force in violation of his constitutional rights.

On April 8, 2019, Cedillo was sitting outside a gas station on Woodman Avenue in Van Nuys when LAPD officers approached him, suspecting that he was under the influence of an unknown drug, according to video footage of the incident.

Officers said Cedillo “began to act erratically and attempted to break away,” after they tried to detain him, an LAPD spokesperson said in the video. Police said Cedillo and the officers “fell to the ground,” and that one of the officers “used his body weight to try and control” Cedillo, who lost consciousness and died five days later at a hospital.

An L.A. County medical examiner determined Cedillo died from loss of blood flow to the brain, cardiac arrest, and the effects of methamphetamine. The medical examiner said the manner of death could not be determined, citing unresolved questions about the incident.

In a dash cam video released by Zelaya’s attorneys after the verdict, an LAPD patrol car pulls up to where Cedillo is being held down by one of the officers, while another officer puts his legs in a restraint. The officer remains on top of Cedillo for another two minutes before they turn him over on his side.

The department didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday. The LAPD previously said that Cedillo died of a methamphetamine overdose.

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The LAPD previously released body-camera footage from the incident in May 2019. The officers told investigators that they saw bulges in Cedillo’s pocket and that he became aggressive when they tried to determine whether he was carrying weapons.

Police said the officers’ cameras fell off and that they held Cedillo to the ground for at least three minutes until additional backup and a supervisor arrived. They put Cedillo in a hobble restraint — a device used to restrain the legs.

In the video, the supervisor asked, “We don’t have a crime?” One of the officers who had arrested Cedillo then said, “No, we were just ... we were going to check his pockets and that’s when he just started flipping out and tried running and we just, we took him to the ground.”

Attorneys for Zelaya argued that Cedillo was “cooperative and had committed no crime,” and said officers put their body weight on him for more than four minutes.

Dale Galipo, a lawyer for Cedillo’s family, said he hoped the jury’s decision would spur more systemic changes within the LAPD.

“Officers don’t lose their jobs, they don’t get demoted, they don’t pay a dollar out of their pockets, and it’s business as usual,” Galipo said. “Even worse, the LAPD found their conduct to be within policy. One has to wonder, what is their policy?”

Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this report.