If you or a loved one has been a victim of police brutality at the hands of the LAPD, you have come to the right place. Despite being a hot-button topic ever since Rodney King was brutally beaten by four police officers in 1992, LAPD police brutality still exists in Los Angeles. While police brutality can be hard to prove due to a variety of factors, it can be prosecuted. However, sometimes prosecution isn’t possible or enough. And when that happens, compensation may be owed to the victim or victims for injuries suffered if you or someone you know who has been brutalized by the LAPD reaches out to a lawyer. According to the LA Times, the Los Angeles Police Department paid nearly $81 million in legal settlements in the 2017 fiscal year.
Not all people realize that you still have the same rights you did before you were arrested. Sadly, some people don’t know and some police don’t care, ignoring those rights. Police’s abuse of power is a serious matter that is all too relevant these days. Police brutality affects a victim and the victim’s family. Police brutality, police denial of civil rights and other misconduct by the LAPD undermine the Constitution. So if you are rights were violated or you were brutalized during an arrest, you may want to contact a lawyer regarding a lawsuit against the LAPD.
If you or someone has been brutalized by the police, you have the right to contact a personal injury lawyer who has experience dealing in police brutality at the hands of the LAPD. Depending on the severity of the incident, a victim can also hold the injurious officer or officers accountable by filing a police misconduct lawsuit. Police misconduct can include: unnecessary use of force, failure to read a suspect their Miranda rights, false imprisonment, planting evidence and illegal search and seizure of property not related to any crime.
In a Los Angeles police misconduct lawsuit, you can win compensation for misconduct by police, loss of your property and any time you spent in jail or prison for crimes you never committed. Perhaps more importantly, you can send a message to police that brutality and civil rights violations won’t be tolerated in your community.
It is important to contact an attorney well-versed in police brutality since it is a crime that has historically been hard to bring to trial because, even though it is illegal, it can often be performed under the “color of the law.” Technically, there is no legal definition of police brutality. The term generally includes the excessive use of force by police, whether or not that force rises to the level of criminal assault.
If you are looking to win a case of police brutality, you’ve come to the right spot because it will be beneficial to your lawsuit to pick a lawyer who is familiar with the complexities of police brutality in Los Angeles so that you or a loved one be compensated for any emotional, physical or mental damages incurred at the hands of the LAPD.
Incidents of police abuse in Los Angeles are anything but new. The eyes of the world were on the City of Angels on March 3, 1991, when a man named Rodney King was a victim of police brutality. A bystander filmed him being violently beaten by four LAPD officers while being arrested for fleeing and evading on California State Route 210. The bystander’s footage was sent to local news station KTLA and played for the whole world to see. The shocking footage clearly showed that King being brutalized by the four LAPD officers. After the footage went all over the world, the four officers were tried on charges of use of excessive force. Despite the video showing the violence, three of the four officers were acquitted and the jury failed to reach a verdict on one charge for the fourth. Following the shocking verdict, Los Angeles erupted in six days of rioting in which 63 people were killed.
Eventually the federal government prosecuted the men in a separate civil rights case. On April 16, 1993, two of the police officers were found guilty and sentenced to prison. The other two men were acquitted of the charges. However, with the aid of his attorney, King filed a separate lawsuit and won $3.8 million in damages from the city of Los Angeles.
Just like King, you can win compensation for damages. You may be awarded money for misconduct by police, loss of your property and any time you spent in jail or prison for crimes you never committed. And what’s also important for a victim or the loved one of a victim, is that by filing a lawsuit, you can send a message to police that brutality and civil rights violations will no longer be tolerated.
If you or a loved one was brutalized by the LAPD, you may be due monetary compensation. You have come to the right place if you were involved in a police, shooting, racial profiling, a police beating, excessive force by the police, sexual assault by the Los Angeles Police Department. Whether you or a loved one is a victim and has been brutalized by the police and you are looking for a lawyer to sue the LAPD for police brutality, Cohen & Cohen, can help you get the justice you deserve. If you want to talk about how to win your case of police brutality, you can reach us at a 24/7 live phone answering. So, if you need a DC lawyer who handles police brutality cases, contact Cohen & Cohen, our DC Law Firm today.
