Christopher Bailey to receive almost $5M settlement after a 2020 traffic stop beating

Bailey will get $4.75 million after suffering irreversible eye damage, missing teeth and facial fractures, the latest substantial settlement for legal disputes involving L.A. County sheriffs.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has approved a sizable payment for a Black man severely beaten by sheriff’s deputies in 2020.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Christopher Bailey will receive $4.75 million after a traffic stop that left him with permanent sight impairment, missing teeth and facial fractures, the most recent in a string of substantial settlements for legal disputes involving the Sheriff’s Department.

In a single meeting last year, supervisors approved payments totaling more than $47 million, with the largest, $8 million, going to the family of 18-year-old Andres Guardado. He was shot dead by a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy in June 2020.

Kobe Bryant’s family received a $13.5 million settlement and a $15 million court verdict from the county this year after three years of legal proceedings that started after deputies released graphic images of the 2020 helicopter crash that killed the Lakers star, his daughter and seven others.

In Bailey’s case, attorney Toni J. Jaramilla welcomed the settlement to end her client’s three-year nightmare and bring “some measure” of justice.

“However, full justice in this case will be the immediate termination and criminal prosecution of each and every Los Angeles County Sheriff deputy involved who, as we alleged, beat, tasered and tortured Mr. Bailey so badly that he was heard pleading for his life,” Jaramilla said, according to The Times. “The trauma he suffered is long-lasting.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department emphasized that any event involving the use of force is regrettable and not typical of the department’s procedures. They pointed out that in Bailey’s case, the use of force occurred because he resisted arrest.

A request for comment reportedly went unanswered by attorneys representing the county and the deputies, one of whom the Civilian Oversight Commission identified as a member of the Grim Reapers deputy gang.

Bailey said he was headed home from work on May 4, 2020, when two deputies stopped him in Inglewood for allegedly straddling the road’s lanes. A federal lawsuit filed two years ago said they pulled him out of his car and “without warning, proceeded to assault and batter” him. Four other deputies arrived minutes later and started kicking him as he lay on the ground.

Deputies later told investigators they believed he was reaching for a weapon and that he elbowed one of them, a charge that Bailey’s lawyer has refuted. They also admitted that one of the cops used a Taser on him.

Bailey said he was unarmed and had nothing in his hands or pockets, and the lawsuit claims that one cop put him in a chokehold while the other continuously struck him. Prosecutors later verified authorities’ failure to find any firearms at the site.

The district attorney’s office charged Bailey with three felony counts of resisting arrest and two misdemeanor marijuana-related offenses. Prosecutors dismissed the felonies and one of the misdemeanors. 

Bailey’s attorneys said he entered a no-contest plea and was convicted of the other misdemeanor and a vehicle code violation. He allegedly had three pounds of marijuana in the car, which he said was for personal use.

When they filed the lawsuit in 2021, Bailey’s attorneys released footage of their client being hoisted into an ambulance after the incident, his face bleeding and his eyes puffy.

While the deputies’ status with the department is unknown, the district attorney’s office decided not to press charges against them this year. Due to a lack of body cameras, the sole footage of the event came from two “police watchers” who arrived after the assault once they overheard radio chatter. Prosecutors noted that Bailey did not appear combative in the footage.

Prosecutors said deputies testified that Bailey had forcefully resisted arrest and at one point groped for his waistband, adding that his rejection of those allegations was “insufficient” to refute the deputies’ accounts.

In addition to suffering irreversible eyesight loss, Bailey required many facial reconstruction procedures, according to the lawsuit, which sought damages for violence, negligence and civil rights infringements based on excessive and disproportionate force.

“I want justice,” he said in 2021, The Times reported, “to hold them accountable for what they did to me.”

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