The City of Morgan Hill agreed to settle a federal lawsuit for $35,000 with a man who claimed he was the victim of excessive police force during a 2009 arrest, City staff said.
Gary Easley, who filed the complaint in June 2010, claims that he was punched several times in the face by former MH Police Officer David Ray after he allegedly accused Easley of trespassing on the Rays’ Morgan Hill property.
The City initially denied Easley’s allegations, but City Council approved a settlement of $35,000 in a closed session Wednesday night. About $15,000 of that was paid by the City; the other $20,000 was paid by the City’s insurer, ABAG. The defense costs were approximately $87,000, according to Interim City Attorney Gary Baum.
“Since the City is required by law to respond to whatever is filed by the plaintiff, the City will often have to spend money on what would otherwise be considered unnecessary,” he noted. “In this instance, it was a federal case and many motions were filed by the plaintiff … the City had no choice but to defend itself.”
The exact terms of the settlement agreement are not yet available, according to Baum.
The 2009 incident wouldn’t be the last time that David Ray was accused of misconduct while serving as a MH Police Officer.
Earlier this year, the City settled for $75,000 with a Gilroy woman who accused Ray and other officers of illegally accessing her smartphone and uploading an “intimate” photo to her Facebook page while she was in custody one evening in July 2011.
The police department took unspecified disciplinary action against Ray due to his alleged involvement in the Facebook incident, according to the legal documents filed by Ray and the Gilroy woman following the incident.
Ray is no longer employed by the City. His name has not appeared on the City’s Internet staff directory since April, when he filed a lawsuit against the City alleging that the disciplinary actions taken against him violated the City’s own policies as well as state laws.
City staff have repeatedly declined to comment on why Ray no longer works for MHPD, and refused to specify how they disciplined him, citing the privacy privileges related to personnel issues and state laws that protect police officers’ private employment files.
Ray served as the City’s K-9 officer from 2008 until earlier this year, though he was placed on “administrative leave pending disciplinary action” for an undisclosed amount of time before his name disappeared from the City’s list of employees.
Easley’s complaint in the California district of federal court claims that in May 2009, Ray and his father approached Easley while he was on their property and asked him to leave. Easley was “parked in a field overlooking Morgan Hill” when the Rays approached him, he said in his complaint.
The Rays called the police department for assistance, but before officers arrived they repeatedly punched Easley in the face several times, the complaint reads. David Ray physically removed Easley from his vehicle and held him down on the ground while continuing to punch him, according to the complaint.
The Rays told MHPD dispatch that Easley tried to run over them with his car – a false report, according to Easley’s complaint. Easley was subsequently arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault, but was not convicted.
His complaint listed a number of violations of his constitutional rights, as well as “economic loss, emotional trauma, loss of liberty, loss of privacy, loss of employment and irreparable harm to his reputation.” He also alleged that police concealed evidence and produced false reports.
Named in Easley’s lawsuit were the Cities of Morgan Hill and San Jose, Santa Clara County, MHPD, the Rays, and Sheriff Laurie Smith, among other officers from San Jose and the sheriff’s office.
In addition to the settlement agreement with the City, Easley has also agreed to dismiss the County from his lawsuit, according to Winifred Botha of the County Counsel’s office.
Ray’s lawsuit against the City is still pending in Santa Clara County Superior Court. He filed the suit in April, and is seeking an undisclosed amount of damages exceeding $25,000. He is also asking the court to order the city to exclude all evidence, statements and testimony it illegally obtained from him during the internal investigation that led to his discipline, according to the complaint.
That lawsuit started with an incident July 16, 2011, when Ray and other officers responded to a “shots fired” call in the area of LaRocca Place in Morgan Hill. While Ray was attending to that call, another officer noticed two women – Casey Serrano, 36, and Regina Partida, 37, both of Gilroy – standing around Ray’s patrol vehicle.
“Two women who had been in a nearby residence (on LaRocca Place) drinking alcohol and eating pizza thought it would be funny to take pictures of them posing with Ray’s patrol car,” the lawsuit filed by Ray said. The women used a mobile smartphone to take the pictures.
When Ray returned to his vehicle he spoke to Serrano and Partida, and determined they had ignored the other officer’s request for them to return inside the home, according to the police report and Ray’s lawsuit. He subsequently arrested the two women about 2 a.m. on suspicion of public drunkenness.
The women were released from the police station about 6 a.m., but returned about 5 p.m. to complain about the “unprofessional” way they were treated in the arrest, and to report that Serrano’s cell phone had been accessed while she was locked up, according to Ray’s lawsuit and a complaint that Serrano filed against the city.
Also, the women found that a photo that was already on the phone prior to their arrest, “depicting one of the women’s bare breasts had been uploaded to her Facebook account.”
Ray’s complaint does not say which of the women’s Facebook accounts had the topless photo uploaded to it, but in a complaint for damages filed with the City Jan. 13, Serrano claimed an officer had posted an “intimate photo” from her phone to the social media website in the same incident.
Supervising officers recognized almost immediately that at least one officer had acted inappropriately, and launched an internal investigation, City staff have said in previous reports. Police also sent the case to the District Attorney’s office for a criminal investigation, but prosecutors found no officers committed a crime.
Ray accuses the city and the police department of violating a government code section known as the “Safety officers” procedural bill of rights.” Among other things, that law guarantees certain rights and protections to police officers who find themselves the subject of certain investigations or types of discipline.
The DA’s office also did not file charges against Serrano and Partida in relation to their arrest on suspicion of public drunkenness.
The City denied Serrano’s initial complaint, but awarded her a $75,000 settlement in June, in exchange for Serrano giving up her right to sue the City.
