(Federal) Jury rules San Jose cops did not use excessive force in Mardi Gras incident

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After a weeklong trial in federal court, a jury Wednesday found that San Jose police officers did not use excessive force against three San Jose State University friends during a Mardi Gras celebration four years ago.

The eight-person jury in the civil trial deadlocked on a related case — voting 6-2 in favor of ruling that officers had no liability for damages to another student who was struck in the back with a baton that night — resulting in a mistrial for that claim.

Further down, the story gets even more interesting...:

One, Natasha Burton, headed a youth advisory group for the San Diego Police Department, where her mother was an officer for nine years. The department's police union had given her a scholarship to San Jose State University. Another, Christina Sanchez, was majoring in justice studies while working part time for the campus police department.

The friends said they were trying to get back to campus after stopping for burritos that night when officers struck three of them with batons. An officer used pepper spray against another member of the group.

One student alleged she was handcuffed, arrested and subjected, she said, to comments about coming to San Jose "from Oakland," which Burton, who is African-American, took as a racial slur. A Bay Area television station, KPIX, videotaped an officer striking one of the women in the back of the legs with a baton, as he was moving her away from the area.

San Jose police reported that an excessive force complaint filed by one of the women was "sustained" by its internal affairs investigators. IA investigations generally look at whether an officer followed policy and procedure.

Police would not elaborate about whether any of the officers were disciplined over their actions that night. But police reports written at the time describe the women as combative and say one of them struck an officer in the chest, which she denied. The city maintained the officers used reasonable force against the young women, who were not heeding their commands.

"This was a skirmish line and the officers were instructing people to go around City Hall and these women chose not to follow these officers, didn't follow directions," Doyle said.

(sigh) Once again, the police continue to receive permission from the higher-ups to over-react if they feel that people aren't acting like robots and obeying everything automatically.

In a previous case, Santa Clara County DA dismissed charges against Phuong Ho, another San Jose State student who was caught on tape being hit and tased by police despite being non-combative. Police were called to his dorm after Ho said after his steak had some soap on it that he would have killed a roommate if they were in Ho's native Vietnam. The DA declined to charge the cops also.

The SJPD is also accused of arresting a disproportionate amount of Hispanics for public drunkeness, an offense for which SJPD arrests the most people statewide for.

Pending in federal court is a civil suit against SJPD for the death of Richard Lua, a 28-year-old man who was Tased by police. The police never explained why they even pursued Lua in the first place; officers were simply doing routine street patrol when they got suspicious and approached Lua, who was also high on methamphetamine.

The one case I do recall when San Jose actually tried to be responsible was the case of Bich Cau Thi Tran, a mother who was shot by an officer after Tran took out a vegetable peeler; the cop thought it was a knife. The city settled with the family for a million dollars IIRC.

Other resources:

San Jose Copwatch
San Jose Police Under Fire: Special reports by San Jose Mercury News about this.