La Mesa
Police Still Targeted by Ex-S.D. Mayor Candidate’s Brutality Suit
Rich Riel
amended his complaint and hopes to serve papers on ex-Chief Al Lanning, others.
On Wednesday, Riel’s
case of alleged police brutality against former Chief Al Lanning and four
officers saw two procedural hearings scheduled—one for June 15 and another July
13, according to court records.
Riel on March
20 filed an updated complaint (attached) against the police and Johnnie Loy
Williams, a convicted felon involved in the October 2010 incident on Highwood
Avenue that led to Riel’s civil suit in El Cajon Superior Court.
After
previously failing to properly serve legal papers on the defendants, Riel said
he would try again in the coming week.
But Thursday, a
lawyer for the Police Department told Patch that Lanning and the officers have
agreed to allow his legal office “to appear for them in this case without
requiring proper service as dictated by the California Code of Civil
Procedure.”
The lawyer,
John P. McCormick, said via email: “We are filing a responsive pleading within
the next few days.”
As for Riel’s
allegations, including one that Williams wasn’t properly investigated by La
Mesa police, McCormick said it would be improper to comment upon any ongoing
investigations “nor to suggest there are any such investigations.”
“I can report
that we are doing those things necessary to properly investigate any and all
relevant allegations in pursuit of a proper conclusion to the pending
litigation,” he said.
On Thursday,
Riel said the defendants are stalling for time, “hoping I will give up and go
away. They are running up costs, hoping I will quit. I hope to serve Lanning
within the week. I will be sending the sheriff out to attempt service after I
have served the [former] chief.”
Riel, a Serra
Mesa resident in his mid-60s, ran for San Diego mayor twice in the early 1980s.
In late February, Judge Eddie Sturgeon sided with La Mesa
police in efforts to fend off the case, saying the lawsuit wasn’t properly
executed and he hadn’t served papers properly.
But Riel quoted
Sturgeon as saying “I don’t want to wait six months to get to this case.”
In a March 9
letter that Riel says was hand-delivered to Police Chief Ed Aceves, Riel
criticized the officers’ refusal to accept service of the papers, which Riel
said gives the appearance of wrongdoing.
Riel said such
actions violate a police code of conduct (attached) suggested by the International
Association of Chiefs of Police.
“This lawsuit
is going to expose the historical practice instituted under Chief Lanning of a
systematic abuse of the constitutional rights of citizens,” Riel said in the
letter.
He offered to
drop his legal action against three officers—Russell Higgins, Sean Snow and
Rodolfo Salazar—if any of the three “wish to disavow the actions taken by Chief
Lanning and Sgt. [Brett] Richards.”
On Oct. 8,
2010, the Riel complaint says, he posed no threat to the public or police when
the four officers “dragged [me] from the porch of [my] house, handcuffed and
incarcerated [me] in the back of a police car, while [my] home was search and
seized without due process.”
Riel’s
complaint cites another 2010 case, a lawsuit by Todd Brunetti against the city
of La Mesa claiming he was subject to the “excessive and unreasonable use of
force.”
“Sgt. Richards
was present when Brunetti was Tasered 9-10 times for as long as 11 seconds each
time, while holding his child,” Riel alleged. “Not only was he forced to
undergo excessive Tasering, he endured two elbow strikes directly to his head,
a knee strike to the side of his body and was sprayed in the face with
Oleoresin spray.”
Riel called
this evidence of “excessive and unreasonable use of force” an ongoing policy of
the La Mesa Police Department.
But court
records show that Brunetti sought dismissal of the case on Oct. 4, 2010—less
than five months after filing the lawsuit against Chief Lanning and Officer
Jacob Wisler.
[Wisler was one
of two officers who returned Mayor Art Madrid home in February 2008 after
finding him lying in a sidewalk inebriated while a city finance employee also
was passed out in Madrid’s SUV.]
[The officers
were criticized for not conducting sobriety tests before they drove them to
Madrid’s Eastridge house about a block away.]
[An independent
investigation by San Luis Obispo-based James Gardiner Associates cleared the
officers of any wrongdoing, saying they didn’t violate department regulations
or the law.]
In his March 22
letter to Aceves, Riel said: “I have been instructed by the Judge [Sturgeon] in
my case to serve each one of your officers and Chief Lanning by personal
service. Please consider this a formal request for you to instruct your
officers as to their duty as law enforcement professionals. Their refusal to
accept service puts them in the class with criminals and deadbeats.”
Riel said he
wasn’t asking Aceves to order them to accept service, but “I am requesting that
you give all of them this letter and the attachments, and urge them to do their
duty.”
Patch sent
police officials a series of questions on the Riel case, but they were
forwarded to Mission Valley-based attorney McCormick, who responded on their
behalf.
Had enough? Write to the Speaker of the House, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515 and demand federal
hearings into the police problem in America.
Demand mandatory body cameras for cops, one strike rule on abuse, and a
permanent DOJ office on Police
Misconduct.
