Thread: Ohio police sued for leaving drunken driver who was Mexican at Taco Bell shortly befo

Ohio police sued for leaving drunken driver who was Mexican at Taco Bell shortly before he was killed

By Associated Press
on January 19, 2014 at 8:39 PM

CINCINNATI — The family of a drunken man picked up by Ohio police officers and dropped off at a Taco Bell before he was fatally struck by a car has sued over his death, accusing authorities of racial discrimination and putting their loved one in danger as part of a "perverse joke" about his Mexican heritage.

The family of 22-year-old Uriel Juarez-Popoca filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Delaware County Sheriff's Office, several of the agency's deputies and an officer with the Ohio State Highway Patrol on Jan. 8. It seeks unspecified damages.

An attorney for the patrolman said the discrimination allegations are ludicrous and that the officers gave Juarez-Popoca "a major break" by letting him go, especially considering that his legal status in the country was in question.The Cincinnati lawyer representing Juarez-Popoca's family, prominent civil-rights attorney Al Gerhardstein, said that proceeds from any settlement in the lawsuit or a jury trial would go to the wife, two children and parents of Juarez-Popoca, who live just south of Mexico City and had become financially dependent on remittance checks they received from Juarez-Popoca, who worked various jobs.

Gerhardstein declined to comment on whether Juarez-Popoca was living legally in the U.S.

It's undisputed that on the night of July 28, 2012, Juarez-Popoca was driving drunk on Interstate 71 in Sunbury, about 25 miles north of Columbus, when he pulled over in a grass median.

Deputies responding to calls about a possible drunk driver found Juarez-Popoca, who spoke very little English, sitting inside his truck, clearly intoxicated.

At that point, the lawsuit says that the deputies should have followed standard protocol and given Juarez-Popoca a blood-alcohol test, and then either detained him or turned him over to a family member or friend pending charges.

Instead, they dropped him off at a Taco Bell restaurant about 5 miles away.

Soon after, Juarez-Popoca was killed by a car while walking along a nearby four-lane highway.

"This stands out as a truly outrageous failure by local law enforcement to do their basic duty of holding people safely," Gerhardstein told The Associated Press. "It's just a really sick joke. A tragic joke."

Police said at the time that they dropped Juarez-Popoca off at the Taco Bell expecting him to call for a ride.

The lawsuit says that deputies placed Juarez-Popoca in obvious danger by leaving him at the fast-food restaurant along a highway and failed to take proper action after receiving numerous calls about him from the store manager and drivers along the highway during a 50-minute period.

Sam Shamansky, the attorney representing the Ohio state patrolman named in the lawsuit, said that Juarez-Popoca's death was a tragedy but that authorities were not discriminating against him.

"There's no discrimination here," he said. "If you ask me, it could just as easily be said that deputies were giving him a major break by not taking him to jail, maybe in order to not have discriminatory actions taken against him, vis-a-vis deportation. As an observer trying to be independent, I would suggest that's way more plausible than that they were discriminating against him because he's Hispanic."

Two deputies, Christopher Hughes and Derek Beggs, were fired over the matter. Patrolman Sean Carpenter also was fired but won an appeal of that decision and was reinstated.

All three were charged criminally in the matter, with various outcomes.

A jury found Beggs guilty of dereliction of duty and he was fined $500. A jury also found Carpenter guilty of dereliction of duty but that was overturned by an appeals court, which found that "no rational trier of fact could have found that (he) acted negligently."

Hughes pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of failure to assist a law enforcement officer and was ordered to pay $20.

An attorney for Hughes and Beggs did not return a call for comment.
In letters firing the two deputies, Delaware County Sheriff Russ Martin wrote that they had showed "a lack of maturity and professionalism."
"A fundamental duty as a law enforcement officer should be the preservation of life and inherent in that is the obligation to put a citizen in a better place than where he or she was found — even if that place is in custody for their own safety or the safety of others," Martin wrote.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/01/ohio_police_sued_for_leaving_d.html
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Popoca’s family sues county
Dustin Ensinger densinger@civitasmedia.com

January 20,1014
Dustin Ensinger

The family of a man struck and killed by a vehicle along U.S. 36 after being dropped off at a restaurant by local law enforcement officials has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court.

Uriel Juarez-Popoca’s family filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court Wednesday. It names Delaware County, former Delaware County Sherrif’s Office (DCSO) deputies Chris Hughes and Derek Beggs, Ohio State Highway Patrol trooper Sean Carpenter and several other members of the DCSO as plaintiffs in the case.

Orange Township Fiscal Officer Joel Spitzer is the attorney of record with the Juarez-Popoca family and will serve as co-counsel in the case.

“The Popoca family is devastated by Uriel’s death,” he said in a statement.

The DCSO said it has been made aware of the lawsuit.

“The Delaware County Sheriff’s Office and County Prosecutor’s Office are currently reviewing the complaint filed on behalf of the Popoca Family,” Sheriff Russ Martin said. “As usual, we are discouraged from commenting on pending litigation. We will work closely with all the parties in the process.”

The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiffs engaged in a “perverse joke” on the night of July 28, 2012 after they discovered Juarez-Popoca stopped along Interstate 71 in an obviously intoxicated state and dropped him off at a nearby Taco Bell instead of taking him into custody.

Juarez-Popoca, who was 22 at the time, later walked out of the restaurant and onto U.S. 36, where he was fatally struck by an oncoming motorist.

The three law enforcement officials directly involved – Beggs, Hughes and Carpenter - were each charged with two misdemeanor counts of dereliction of duty.

The case went to trial in December 2012 at the Delaware City Municipal Court.

Hughes accepted a no contest plea hours before jury selection began and was convicted of a lesser charge of failure to aid a law enforcement officer, a minor misdemeanor. He was fined $20 plus court costs, a total of $183.

After four days of court proceedings, a jury found Beggs and Carpenter guilty of two counts of dereliction of duty. They were fined $1,000 plus court fees, a total of $1,809.80 for each officer.

All three officers were later fired.

However, the conviction against Carpenter was later overturned because he “did not contribute to the decision-making process” that led to the death of Juarez-Popoca, the 5th District Court of Appeals ruled. He has since won an arbitration case that will allow him to return to work.

Juarez-Popoca was an illegal immigrant. His family, including two daughters, remains in Mexico.

“A cruel and dangerous joke was played by these officers on a disoriented and confused man. Mr. Popoca’s death was predictable,’ lead counsel Al Gerhardstein said in a statement. “This case will remind all officers that every person is entitled to fair treatment – including people from Mexico.”

http://delgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...1099953&Ref=AR