Woman sues L.A. over father’s death

Daughter alleges excessive force by LAPD officers during the 2019 incident.

The daughter of a man who died after being detained and taken to the ground by two Los Angeles police officers last year in Van Nuys is suing the city of L.A. in federal court, alleging that excessive force caused his death.

Nicole Juarez Zelaya, 20, says the officers restricted her father’s breathing as they held him on the ground using their own body weight for several minutes, despite the fact that he had not committed a crime, and they had no reason for handcuffing and detaining him.

Her father, Jacobo Juarez Cedillo, became unresponsive shortly afterward and never recovered, dying in a hospital five days later.

“My only desire is for justice to be served,” Zelaya said in an interview with The Times. “The system is messed up, and there needs to be action taken.”

Josh Rubenstein, a police spokesman, said the LAPD cannot comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit comes amid intense scrutiny of police tactics for restraining people on the street after the death in May of George Floyd, who suffered cardiopulmonary arrest while a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck. A medical examiner in Minneapolis ruled Floyd’s death a homicide, and prosecutors filed criminal charges against the officers involved.

An L.A. County medical examiner determined that Cedillo, 50, died in April 2019 of cardiopulmonary arrest, along with a loss of blood flow to the brain and the effects of methamphetamine. Citing unresolved questions about the preceding takedown by police, and the timing of Cedillo’s cardiopulmonary arrest in relation to his detention, the medical examiner said the manner of death could not be determined.

“There is a temporal relationship between the cardiopulmonary arrest after prone physical restraint by law enforcement and the decedent was reported to become unresponsive after placement on the gurney,” the medical examiner wrote. “A component of asphyxia due to possible compression of the body may be contributory to the cardiopulmonary arrest, however there are no findings at autopsy that establish asphyxia.

“Determination of the amount of force used and the physical effects of the restraint cannot be established at autopsy.”

In the lawsuit, Zelaya says that the medical examiner’s findings bolster her argument that the police takedown contributed to her father’s death.

“It is well known throughout law enforcement and medical professionals that holding a subject in a prone position restraint can be deadly,” the lawsuit states. “Compressing an arrestee in a prone position with a police officer’s weight on his or her back, and/or upper torso, restricts the ability to breathe and blood flow to the brain, and can result in anoxic encephalopathy, which is a process that begins with the cessation of cerebral blood flow to brain tissue, like in this case.”

Zelaya argues that the city is liable in her father’s death in part because it failed to train its officers on the “dangers of applying pressure to an arrestee who is in a prone position.”

The lawsuit revives questions in a case the LAPD had considered settled.

After Cedillo’s death, the department investigated the incident and released body-camera footage.

The video shows the two officers approaching Cedillo as he is seated in the driveway of a gas station. As they approach him, he puts his hands behind his back, and they handcuff him. The officers later told investigators that they had seen Cedillo almost get run over by a truck, feared for his safety and handcuffed him as a precaution as they sought to find out whether he was OK.

In the video, Cedillo tells the officers he is homeless and doesn’t feel well. The officers later said they noticed bulges in his pocket and that Cedillo became agitated and aggressive when they attempted to determine whether the bulges were weapons.

“Relax,” one officer says in the video after they walk Cedillo to the back of their patrol car.

“I don’t have nothing,” Cedillo says.

“OK, then calm down and relax,” the officer says.

Cedillo starts struggling, and the officers take him to the ground alongside a curb.

Police said the officers’ cameras fell off at that point but that they held Cedillo on the ground for three more minutes until additional officers and a supervisor arrived. They also placed his legs in a hobble restraint.

The video resumes, and at one point, the supervisor asks, “We don’t have a crime?” and one of the arresting officers says, “No, we were just ... we were going to check his pockets, and that’s when he just started flipping out and tried running, and we just, we took him to the ground.”

In March, Police Chief Michel Moore presented a report to the Police Commission in which he said that although he wished Cedillo had been positioned differently at one point during his detention, the officers’ actions were reasonable and within department policy.

The report found that the officers continually checked on Cedillo to make sure he was breathing during his detention, called for an ambulance after he appeared to be in distress and tried to position him in a way that would facilitate his breathing when he wasn’t resisting.

The Police Commission ordered a tactical debriefing for two sergeants and four officers but agreed with Moore that the force used on Cedillo was within department policy.

Zelaya said her father’s death affects her daily, as does the LAPD’s justification of its officers’ actions.

“There’s a lot wrong with the system. There’s just a lot that needs to be done,” she said. “People need to be seen as human beings.”