FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
Date: August 11, 2021
Re: Protester Shot By LAPD Files Lawsuit
Press Contact: David Clay Washington, Esq. – (626) 585-9600 dwashington@hadsellstormer.com
Protester Shot By LAPD Files Lawsuit
The complaint may be viewed here:
Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai attorneys Dan Stormer, Shaleen Shanbhag, and David Clay Washington filed the lawsuit in federal court on Mr. Pineda’s behalf on Wednesday, August 11, 2021 (Case Number 2:21-cv-06470). The complaint cites three recent “after-action reports” detailing the LAPD’s inadequate training on the use of “less lethal” projectiles and its poor planning, preparation, and communication during the 2020 protests.
Pineda, a 30-year-old Los Angeles native, was shot while protesting the unjustified police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. News cameras caught Mr. Pineda’s shooting, showing him at least 25 feet away from a skirmish line of riot gear clad LAPD officers with his open hands stretched out above his head. Without provocation, the battalion of officers fired at least ten kinetic impact projectiles at a small group of peaceful protesters.
The shocking news footage shows Mr. Pineda immediately buckle over in pain and stagger backward. He fell to the ground where several other protestors risked their own safety to assist him. The extremely dangerous part-metal projectile that LAPD discharged on Mr. Pineda burned through two layers of clothing, created a throbbing open wound the diameter of a softball, and left him with permanent scarring. Mr. Pineda said “The raised scarring and lack of sensation at the wound site results in a feeling that I can only describe as a rubbery and dead piece of flesh attached to my body.”
Of the LAPD’s actions during the protests, Mr. Pineda’s attorney Dan Stormer stated, “The abject brutality of the LAPD during these protests was extensively covered by the international press. Like the brutalization of so many other protesters that day, the shooting of Christian Pineda places in sharp relief the LAPD’s lawless cruelty against peaceful demonstrators partaking in the largest mobilization for civil rights in the history of our country. Simply put, the LAPD is violent and completely out of control. Its leadership supports, condones, ratifies, and tries to cover up this brutal behavior.”
The lawsuit states that the high-speed, dangerous projectile fired at Mr. Pineda is a “pain compliance tool that fires kinetic energy impact munitions intended to incapacitate aggressive, noncompliant individuals and can result in serious bodily injury or death.” Mr. Pineda was neither aggressive nor noncompliant.
Mr. Pineda joins many others in filing lawsuits against the LAPD for excessive force at the summer protests, including Benjamin Montemayor, who was shot in the testicle with an identical projectile, and a class action brought by Black Lives Matter Los Angeles.
###
#blm_la #policemisconduct #georgefloyd #bmontey #defundthepolice