Story Created:
May 28, 2009 at 3:09 PM PST
Story Updated:
Jun 5, 2009 at 7:35 PM PST
The following story corrects information that was published May 28 in the print edition.
Relatives of a man who died after a confrontation with Los Angeles police have dropped their wrongful death lawsuit against the city, an LAPD representative and a plaintiff’s attorney said Tuesday.
The legal action stemmed from the death of Jesus Mejia nearly three years ago in Boyle Heights. The plaintiffs chose not to go forward with the trial after results from the coroner’s office disproved their allegations that Mejia died from being shot with a Taser and then being restrained, according to Cmdr. Stuart Maislin, director of the LAPD’s risk management division.
The case was not settled, as was earlier reported based on statements from a court clerk. The plaintiffs dropped the lawsuit.
The coroner’s autopsy report showed Mejia had cocaine in his blood and that he had injuries on his face, body and back. But the report concludes that “the manner of death is left undetermined as we are unsure of the role the restraint played in the death.”
Luis Carrillo, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he decided not to take the case to trial based on information he received from a pathologist, but the attorney declined to elaborate.
The case was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in October 2007 on behalf of Mejia’s widow, Karen Guevara, his mother, Carmen Gomez, and his two children.
The confrontation between Mejia and police occurred shortly before 1 a.m. on Sept. 4, 2006, when officers from the Hollenbeck Station were sent to a home in the 3300 block of Whittier Boulevard after receiving reports of a disturbance.
When officers arrived, Mejia was in an agitated, combative state and they believed the 32-year-old married father was under the influence of cocaine, police said previously.
The plaintiffs maintained Mejia was restrained and then shot twice in the stomach with a Taser in front of his wife and children, even though he had obeyed officers’ orders to raise his hands and lie on the floor.
But police said Mejia refused to comply with officers’ instructions.
They restrained him and Officer Victor Arellano, a 10-year veteran, shot him with a Taser, according to the LAPD.
After Mejia was put in a police car, he began having difficulty breathing, according to the LAPD. Paramedics from the Los Angeles Fire Department took him to County-USC Medical Center, where he died.
A Taser, according to the Taser company Web site, fires two small “probes” that are attached by wires to the Taser “electronic control device.” Electrical impulses are transmitted into the subject’s body along those wires “affecting the sensory and motor functions of the peripheral nervous system.”
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