California Police Brutality Lawsuit Settled for $1 Million After Video and Photos Capture the Acts

A police brutality lawsuit filed in California, which alleged that officers kicking a man and broke his jaw while he was handcuffed, was settled last week for $1 million.

According to the complaint, officers from the Hawthorne Police Department kicked a handcuffed Anthony Goodrow in the face on July 21, 2006, and then falsely prosecuted him and his wife, Karla Henriquez Goodrow, in an attempt to cover up the police brutality and misconduct.

Shortly before the trial was scheduled to begin in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, the parties reached an agreement to settle the case for $1 million.

According to Jonas & Driscoll, L.L.P., the police brutality lawyers who filed the lawsuit, the evidence they intended to present at trial would have included a photograph in which an officer was kicking a handcuffed Goodrow in the face and a surveillance video that showed the officers high-fiving each other.

Police brutality in California has garnered a lot of attention in recent weeks, following the fatal shooting of 22 year old Oscar Grant in the back during the early hours of New Years morning, in Oakland. The shooting was captured on video by a number of people in the area.

Following a New Years Eve celebration in San Francisco, violence erupted on a train transporting people back to Oakland. Cell phone video shows Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police throwing Grant against a well and kneeing him in the face. Despite his visible cooperation on the video, Officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot Grant in the back while he was being held down by another officer.

Grant’s family is pursuing a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit against Bay Area Rapid Transit Agency, and many have questioned what would have come from this incident had there not been a train full of witnesses and cell phone video of the police shooting.