Carl Edwards was on his own front porch, working on a fence, minding his own business, when Vallejo Police Officer Spencer Muniz-Bottomley attacked him . Two other officers and a sergeant joined in, choking and beating Carl for several minutes. Officers were looking for someone else who did not fit…
San Francisco Chronicle/Otis R. Taylor, Jr. Handyman Carl Edwards was welding the fence at the side of his Tennessee Street building when a Vallejo police officer approached him. Seconds later, Edwards was bleeding — tackled to the ground, choked and punched repeatedly in the head. Blood gushed from his busted…
We helped our two clients, the children of Humberto (“Beto”) Martinez, settle their claims for their father’s wrongful chokehold death for $7.3 million plus police reforms. This local case involved Pittsburg police officers’ use of a carotid hold and choke hold, and other highly injurious force, on video, while Beto…
This local case involved Pittsburg police officers’ use of a carotid hold and choke hold, and other highly injurious force, on video, while Beto Martinez can be heard saying, “I can’t breathe!” much like the more publicized cases of George Floyd and Eric Garner. On the afternoon of July 26,…
San Jose Mercury News/Nate Gartell PITTSBURG — The city has agreed to pay $7.3 million to settle a lawsuit by the family of a man who was killed after an officer placed him in a carotid hold for 50 seconds, using a controversial technique that has since been widely banned…
The City of Vallejo agreed to pay $5.7 million to avoid trial against the children and parents of Ronell Foster, who was shot and killed by Vallejo Officer Ryan McMahon in 2018. Officer McMahon was stopping Ronell for a bicycle infraction, and says he only intended to give him a…
San Francisco Chronicle/Otis R. Taylor, Jr. Last week, the city of Vallejo agreed to pay $5.7 million to the family of Ronell Foster. According to the city attorney’s office, the settlement is the largest for a civil rights violation in the city’s history, but Paula McGowan, Foster’s mother, isn’t in the…
In a still pending case, a California county and some of its medical providers have agreed to pay $5.1 million to the widow and son of a mentally ill man who died in jail while awaiting transfer to a state hospital. The man who died had cared for his family…
In a groundbreaking case against Stanislaus County and its private, for-profit jail medical provider, Haddad & Sherwin LLP obtained an $11.5 million settlement for a former inmate who walked into the jail able-bodied, and was carried out on a stretcher — paralyzed from the neck down. Our client, who wishes…
Alex Horton/Washington Post Isiah Murrietta-Golding, fleeing the police, leaps a metal fence, tumbling head over heels. The officers are blocked. The teenager runs, trying to hold up his pants. He is unaware a Fresno police officer has contorted his body into a shooting stance from the other side, where the…