On Wednesday, March 12, 2025, Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai LLP Partners Brian Olney, Morgan Ricketts, and David Clay Washington obtained a unanimous federal jury verdict of $6,000,000 against the County of Orange and Sheriff’s Deputies Anthony Montoya, Michael Johnson, Brent Lind, Brad Carrington, and John Frey. HSRD represented Susan Peck, the widow of Paul Mono, a former Creative Director for the Los Angeles Times’ Advertising Department and a syndicated cartoonist. Mr. Mono was sixty-five and retired at the time he was shot in his living room by Orange County sheriff’s deputies Anthony Montoya and Michael Johnson on February 6, 2018. Three additional deputies – John Frey, Brad Carrington, and Brent Lind were present at the time of the shooting.
Mr. Mono suffered from retinitis pigmentosa, a congenital progressive illness that slowly robbed him of his vision. By the time of his death, Mr. Mono was legally blind with very little usable vision remaining. Mr. Mono and Ms. Peck moved to the Laguna Woods retirement community in 2017, hoping to find a safe place to accommodate Mr. Mono’s deteriorating eyesight.
On February 6, 2018, Orange County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to a call for service at the Mono-Peck home in Laguna Woods retirement community. Mr. Mono, who had been diagnosed with a form of bipolar disorder, was experiencing a mental health crisis. According to data compiled by the Washington Post, 20% of all victims of fatal police shootings between 2015 and 2024 suffered from some form of mental illness. Persons with serious mental illness are 11 times more likely to be the victim of a police use of force.
Five deputies arrived at the Mono-Peck home. The deputies rushed up to the windows of the condo with their guns drawn and attempted to remove Mr. Mono from the home with orders to come outside, which were unsuccessful. Their orders and guns severely agitated Mr. Mono.
Although Mr. Mono was wearing dark sunglasses, using a white cane with a red tip, repeatedly told the deputies he was blind, and was exhibiting obvious signs of a mental health crisis, the deputies repeatedly abandoned their training on how to safely interact with people who are visually impaired and who may be experiencing a mental health crisis. The deputies testified at trial that they believed Mr. Mono was faking his disabilities.
Over the next ten minutes, the deputies failed to take any steps to de-escalate the situation. Specifically, the deputies failed to create a tactical plan or designate anyone to be in charge, failed to reposition to a safe location with cover, failed to set up a perimeter to allow themselves time and distance so that Mr. Mono’s agitation could fade, failed to obtain information from key witnesses at the scene, failed to attempt to reach Mr. Mono through phones or intermediaries, failed to make efforts to help Mr. Mono understand the scene around him, and failed to request support from specialized department employees trained in responding to calls involving people with mental and visual disabilities.
The jury heard evidence demonstrating that each of these tactics is standard protocol and that the deputies failed to use them.
Throughout the encounter, Mr. Mono never left his home and the deputies never went inside. After ten minutes, deputies Johnson and Montoya fired 14 bullets through the windows, striking Mr. Mono 6 times and killing him in front of Ms. Peck. The jury heard evidence contradicting the deputies’ testimony that they shot Mr. Mono after he grabbed a gun.
After six days of testimony, the jury returned a unanimous verdict finding all five deputies negligent and finding the County liable for violating Mr. Mono’s rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The jury awarded $6 million to Ms. Peck and the Estate of Paul Mono as compensation for Mr. Mono’s pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and lost social security income, and Ms. Peck’s loss of her husband’s love and companionship. The amount will be reduced to $5,753,600 after reductions for comparative negligence.
Ms. Peck said, “Hadsell Stormer believed in me when others didn’t. Paul and I were ambushed. The sheriffs didn’t care about Paul’s disabilities. Paul was my world, and he was brutally taken from me just as we were about to begin the next phase of our life together. It means everything to me that the jury believed in Paul. This doesn’t bring him back, but it does make me feel like there is some justice in this world. I truly hope this verdict will act as deterrence and save others from the pain I’ve endured.”
Hadsell Stormer partner Brian Olney said, “Police negligence killed Paul Mono. These deputies abandoned their training and acted recklessly. When police officers abandon their training and act recklessly, innocent people die.”
Partner Morgan Ricketts said, “This was such a sad case because it was so preventable. We want the people who review these shootings to shift their emphasis from looking for a justification, to looking for that pivotal moment that could have avoided the need for force in the first place. We have to change the culture to one that anticipates and plans instead of reacts.”
“This verdict tells the world what we’ve known from the start: these Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputies, sworn to protect the most vulnerable among us, did just the opposite when they killed Paul Mono,” said HSRD partner David Clay Washington. “Ms. Peck’s strength and resilience can’t be reduced to words.”