Federal Lawsuit Claims Garden Grove Cops Handcuffed Justice

Abu Ghraib West? (Illustration by Paul Nagel for OC Weekly)

Cops fume with good reason if a baby or an animal is stuck in a vehicle without ventilation on a hot day. Experts report infants can die in as soon as 20 minutes under such circumstances. But a man claims that two Southern California police officers tortured him in a similar way in July 2016.

According to Douglas Hardin, the Garden Grove Police Department cops handcuffed him so tightly they cut and sprained his wrists, placed a mesh hood over his head, locked him in the back of a patrol car with the windows closed while the day’s temperatures headed toward triple digits and ignored his pleas for help.

“The force used against the plaintiff following his arrest was not reasonable under the circumstances,” the lawsuit against officers Chasen Contreras and Lino Santana states. “[The officers] used the handcuffs as a weapon of police brutality. . . The decision to leave the plaintiff in the police car while parked outside the police station with no air ventilation, sitting in the sun and handcuffs cutting his wrists is, in fact, excessive force.”

Though police abuse cases aren’t rare in Southern California, it’s exceptionally unusual for a non-lawyer plaintiff who is representing himself from prison—like Hardin, who was convicted of residential burglary after the incident—to score a courthouse victory over the likes of Lois Bobak and Caroline A. Byrne at Woodruff, Spradling & Smart, a Costa Mesa-based law firm with a long list of accomplishments defending government entities.

But, incredibly, that’s exactly what happened in September inside Orange County’s Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse when Hardin tentatively overcame the law firm’s efforts to kill the lawsuit before it can reach a future jury in Los Angeles, a place where juries are less hospitable to alleged police mischief than Orange County.

Illustration by Mark Dancey

Bobak an Byrne mocked the legitimacy of the tight handcuff issue with U.S. Magistrate Judge John E. McDermott, arguing that Hardin’s wrists hadn’t been broken and, therefore, that complaint should not be a triable issue for a jury to determine. They also asserted that the cops reasonably feared that the suspect, who was uncooperative and self-abusive after his arrest, might harm himself or them if they loosened the cuffs. As is customary, the lawyers asserted that Contreras and Santana should enjoy immunity for their conduct because they are cops.

“Excessively tight handcuffing can constitute excessive force,” they observed. “But only if the evidence demonstrates that it was objectively unreasonable not to remove or loosen tighten handcuffs.”

McDermott accepted some of the defendants’ legal assertions—including that the officers, who were apparently peeved Hardin had displayed contempt for them, hadn’t delayed medical attention to an extent that violated his constitutional rights. But McDermott didn’t buy the cops’ rationale for ending the case before trial. For him, the refusal of the officers to loosen the handcuffs can’t be ignored and deserves jury consideration.

“At the time of the plaintiff’s arrest, it was clearly established in the Ninth Circuit that keeping an individual in tight and painful handcuffs may violate the Fourth Amendment when the individual complains the handcuffs are too tight and requests officers to loosen them,” McDermott wrote in a Report and Recommendation.

However, the magistrate judge found that locking this drenched suspect in the scorching space and ignoring his cries for approximately a half hour should be dismissed. “In general, courts have found that confinement in a hot police vehicle amounted to excessive force when the exposure was prolonged and have found that force was not excessive when the confinement lasted 30 minutes or less,” McDermott observed.

The cops are hoping U.S. District Court Judge Philip S. Gutierrez, who presides, will overrule McDermott in coming weeks and order the entire case dismissed before a trial.

5 Replies to “Federal Lawsuit Claims Garden Grove Cops Handcuffed Justice”

    1. It’s that comment to excuse mild torture pain and suffering?… By criminal cops…
      No one it’s above the law….
      Torture the… The infliction of severe pain as a means of punishment??????

  1. Police injure wrists and do a lasting damage to wrists and get away with it because how extremely difficult to sue police. Police have unlimited tax payer funded legal resources like this Woodruff and Spardlin, Byrne etc. Even finding a lawyer is next to impossible. Police keep absuing their power as they so extremely rarely held accountable.

    1. I agree! In garden Grove me and my girlfriend and make a long story short we were arrested with a big b******* story where they said they found illegal drugs there was no illegal drugs? there was no substance tested? but we were arrested, and three vehicles impounded my motorhome, my Escalade, and the girlfriends Honda Civic, we had a blowout in the RV and was waiting to get a tire, we pulled over for the night in back of the bank and the Cocos that went out of business we had permission by the owners and managers and posted it in the front glass driver side window, they came in at 7:30 in the morning beating on the side of my RV with a billy club yelling garden Grove to Police department come out now five cop cars in total and totally abused my rights and my girlfriend’s rights especially with an arrest going on her record with being a notery, they didn’t show us what they found the cops were abusive and showed all signs of being dirty, I told the ranking officer I didn’t give your guy permission to go in the RV and firmly said your not going in my RV after he asked me what he’s gonna find in the RV, needless to say he comes out asking quote: ok who’s shit is it? not showing or saying what he found at all, and said I’m not gonna ask again, and proceeded to cuff us and put us in cop car, we sat in back while they tossed the other two cars around inside and out and had all three towed, I lost my Escalade 2009 because the impound yard actioned it off on the 28th day and the garden Grove watch commander told us he’d call and get an extension so they wouldn’t sell it because we paid a but load already to get the other 2 out, RV, and Honda Civic, I went to 5 pre trials??? Is that even possible? I had a judge tell me I couldn’t represent myself, I called all sorts of lawyers and no one would take the case, I had respect for law enforcement up to that point of my life and now look at them totally different I’ve never had a Arizona cop or Indiana cop do or treat me in this non professional manner, as for the girlfriend she got sick of going to court five times and took some swab and signed a no contest deal because that is allot of stress and wasted time, needless to say she lost her notery licence, I lost a Escalade we were booked in and no drugs were even tested or found for that matter? When we asked what was found? watch commander said he didn’t know then we asked why doesn’t it show on arrest record of test for narcotics, and weigh it, give percentages etc?? He responded with a bull shit excuse that the officers don’t have to field test the drugs or alleged drugs powder whatever, due to fentanyl and how it’s so dangerous for cops to touch yet these guys go to work with a gun on their side ready to fight any kind of gunfight wanting to go to a gunfight what’s with putting on some gloves and a face mask or face shield don’t get, so now no one’s rights are safe if that’s the new rule because they’re going to be doing that to a lot of people they can find tide in the backseat of your f****** car and call it meth and you’re going to jail and you know they did say oh we’ll send it to a lab we never did see what they had I don’t even know what it was? It does make me furious though to know I lost out time money vehicles and not a damn lawyer to help…. And this is a God’s honest true story garden Grove Police department are corrupt as hell

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *