Man Claims He Was Victim of Unprovoked Police Beating

A 25-year-old restaurant cook claimed Wednesday that he was severely beaten in an unprovoked attack by two San Diego police officers April 4, an incident that a Latino advocacy group alleged is part of a pattern of “police terror” against city minorities.

Police Cmdr. Larry Gore disputed Cristobal Lomeli Ramirez’s brutality complaint--asserting that Lomeli violently resisted arrest after leading police on a high-speed chase--and denied any pattern of harassment by police.

Claims of police brutality are currently “easy, topical and popular” but “actual investigation doesn’t seem to support that even in the slightest,” Gore said. A police internal affairs investigation of Lomeli’s claim is under way, Gore said, prompted by Lomeli’s April 17 complaint to a recently established outreach office at City Hall. Lomeli said that he has hired an attorney and is considering filing suit against the city.

Lomeli faces a June 20 trial on a felony charge of evading an officer with reckless driving and misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence of alcohol, hit-and-run and resisting an officer, said Steve Casey, spokesman for Dist. Atty. Edwin L. Miller. Lomeli registered a .09 in blood alcohol tests, above the legal limit of .08, Casey said.

Lomeli, who said he is a cook at the Fish Market restaurant on Harbor Drive, showed bruised right ribs and a scar on his left shoulder during a morning news conference hosted by La Union Del Barrio. He claimed that two police officers grabbed him outside his home about 5 p.m. April 4 and beat him without provocation after his brakes failed and his car toppled a fire hydrant.

The officers, identified in the police report as James Mackay and Johnny Keene, then dragged Lomeli three blocks away, where they allegedly beat him with their fists and kicked him in the ribs and groin, Lomeli claimed. Lomeli said he was taken to the hospital for treatment and released.

Speaking through a translator, Lomeli said that one officer told him that “if it was up to him (he would) take all Mexicans and put us on boats and send us out to the ocean so sharks could eat us.” Lomeli also claimed that he was taunted by one of the officers after his April 19 preliminary court hearing.

Gore had a very different version of events. He said that Lomeli drove away after toppling the fire hydrant at 45th Street and Orange Avenue, and led pursuing police on a high-speed chase through parts of East San Diego before jumping out of his car and fleeing on foot.

Officers Mackay and Keene apprehended Lomeli in a yard in the 4300 block of Chamoune Avenue, where a “two-minute, very violent struggle” ensued, Gore said. Lomeli was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police cruiser, but, while being transported, he began banging his head on the police car’s metal screen and kicking the rear windows, Gore said. The two officers stopped the car and forcibly restrained Lomeli, tying his legs, Gore said.

When Lomeli vomited and began to have difficulty breathing, the officers took him to the police storefront at Euclid Avenue and El Cajon Boulevard, Gore said. Paramedics brought him to Mercy Hospital.

Paul Aceves, coordinator of La Union Del Barrio, said that the incident is part of a long-term pattern of police abuse against Latinos and other minorities. He called for creation of a 10-member civilian review board whose members would be elected at conventions held in each of the city’s eight districts, with two members each coming from the heavily minority 4th and 8th districts.

The panel should have the authority to hire, fire, review cases of abuse with complete access to all files and “bring forth indictments against all officers guilty of abuse,” according to Aceves. The city’s current police review panel has been criticized by activists and some officials as ineffectual.