LA County Approves $25 Million Settlement With Family Of Man With Autism Who Was Shot, Paralyzed By Sheriff’s Deputy

Los Angeles County supervisors signed off on a $25-million settlement Tuesday in the case of a 28-year-old man who was paralyzed after he was shot by a sheriff’s deputy during a scuffle at the man’s home three years ago.

Isaias Cervantes was 25 and experiencing a mental health crisis in March 2021 when the shooting occurred at his home in the southeast L.A. County city of Cudahy, according to one of the family’s attorneys.

Cervantes, who is also deaf, is now paralyzed from his chest down.

Attorney Austin Dove said Cervantes uses a wheelchair and has been deprived of the things he loves: horseback riding, dancing and helping his father at work.

Isaias Cervantes

(

Courtesy of the Cervantes family

)

The family sued the Sheriff’s Department in 2021, claiming civil rights violations, excessive force, assault and negligence.

“There were so many things that could have been done differently and the harms are extreme,” Dove told LAist.

In a statement, the Sheriff’s Department said it conducted an internal investigation and found the shooting to be within policy.

“Any call for service that results in a shooting is traumatic for all involved and in situations where we encounter an individual who is experiencing a mental health crisis it adds an additional layer of complexity,” the department said.

The L.A. County CEO’s office said it would not comment on the settlement.

The Cervantes case is the latest in which L.A. County was ordered or agreed to pay millions to plaintiffs. Last fiscal year, the county paid more than $257 million to satisfy 22 judgments and settle 320 lawsuits, a 212% increase over the previous fiscal year, according to a county report.

Among them was a lawsuit filed by the family of Andres Guardado, who claimed the department used excessive force when a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed Guardado outside an auto body shop in Compton. The department claimed Guardado reached for a gun he had previously placed on the ground.

The county agreed to pay $8 million to Guardado’s family.

What we know about the shooting

On March 31, 2021, one of Cervantes’ family members called 911 and said he “was having a mental health crisis and creating a disturbance by pushing other family members,” according to a 20-minute narrated video produced by the sheriff’s department that includes the 911 call, body-worn camera footage and additional department commentary.

Two deputies responded to the call and showed up at the Cervantes home. In bodycam video, Cervantes appears to resist as deputies grab each of his arms in an apparent attempt to handcuff him.

Because the deputies’ cameras fell off during the struggle, the footage does not capture key moments of the encounter. The view of the struggle is largely obstructed, but audio is still picked up. One deputy can be heard yelling, “He’s going for my gun!”

The other deputy fired a single shot, hitting Cervantes “in the left side of his torso,” according to the department.

One of the deputies was injured in the scuffle, suffering “facial abrasions, bilateral eye contusions, corneal abrasions and a cervical sprain,” the department said.

A long legal battle

The lawsuit filed in 2021 against L.A. County named both deputies involved in the incident: David Vega and Jonathan Miramontez.

Six months after the incident, the district attorney’s office filed criminal charges against Cervantes, accusing him of assault and resisting an officer by violence.

More than a dozen advocacy groups, including the Autism Society of L.A., sent a letter to District Attorney George Gascón’s office urging him to drop the charges.

“This is a person with autism who is also deaf and now paralyzed because of the shooting by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department,” Judy Mark, president of Disability Voices United, said at the time.

The charges were later dropped. Gascón’s office does not usually publicly disclose the specific reasons when it declines to pursue charges, but Dove said the office cited insufficient evidence.

Mental health team not called in

Law enforcement agencies have acknowledged, to some extent, the need for teams of medical professionals to respond to calls involving people in mental health crisis. L.A. County has Mental Evaluation Teams, known as MET, that consist of a specially-trained deputy and a Department of Mental Health clinician.

Lt. John Gannon, who previously headed up the Mental Evaluation Teams said in 2021 that if a deputy knows a call involves a person living with autism in crisis, they should notify MET.

“If patrol knows a call involves an autistic person in crisis, they would indeed notify MET to co-respond,” Gannon said in an email.

He told LAist in 2021 that MET was not called to respond to the Cervantes incident.

‘No closure’

Dove said this week that he hoped the settlement would help the family members get the resources they need to care for Cervantes, who still has bullet fragments in his back from the incident.

“There’s no closure ... when you have this sort of permanent paralysis injury,” Dove said.

On Tuesday, Dove, members of Cervantes’ family and others held a news conference outside of the board of supervisors’ meeting before they voted to approve the settlement.

Cervantes’ sister said she hoped that families caring for loved ones living with autism would get more support. And she hoped her brother’s life would change for the better.

“It’s sad to see him suffering,” Yajaira Cervantes said. “He likes the fact that there’s people supporting him and that there’s a community that’s also helping him and for his voice to matter.”