A federal jury has awarded $11.8 million to a Los Angeles Dodgers fan who was blinded by a police volley during a World Series celebration in 2020.
The ruling Thursday ends Isaac Castellanos’ nearly six-year legal battle after LAPD officers fired less-lethal weapons into a crowd where he stood and struck him in the face, permanently losing the vision in one eye.
Castellanos filed a lawsuit alleging excessive force. His lawyers have pushed to triple the jury award under a state law that allows enhanced damages in such cases.
Like most jury awards, the amount will likely be appealed and still requires approval from city leaders.
At the time of the incident, Castellanos was a 22-year-old Cal State Long Beach student. He said he was peacefully celebrating a Dodgers win near Crypto.com Arena around 1 a.m. on October 28, 2020, when officers approached the crowd.
LAPD officials said officers were responding to violent groups that were vandalizing downtown businesses. Castellanos and others have accused the department of overreacting to the situation, saying the situation was largely peaceful.
Beyond the emotional toll, losing partial vision has cost Castellanos a potentially lucrative career in esports, according to Pedram Esfandiari, one of his lawyers.
His lawyers said he was an avid gamer and had won $20,000 in a gaming contest just months before the incident.
Castellanos previously told the Times that he and his friends had not broken any laws and were not posing a threat to officers when they were attacked. He also said he did not hear police ordering him to disperse before the officers pounced on the people with their projectile launchers.
After six days of testimony and evidence, the jury deliberated for less than two hours before returning a verdict.
Esfandiari said evidence showed Castellanos was attacked with a 37-mm “skip trace” launcher, which fires a hard-foam projectile designed to strike the lower body in an effort to rise above the ground and disperse protesters.
Under LAPD policy, the weapons must be used at close range, but Castellanos’ attorneys showed evidence that the bullets were fired from about 145 feet away, enough distance for the projectile to rise to eye level.
The lawyer said he hopes the major verdict will serve as a warning to the department and the city as more lawsuits over less-lethal weapons are underway.
“This is another nail in the coffin that has to stop,” he said.
Since 2020, the department has been forced to limit the use of certain projectile launchers
A federal judge issued an injunction against the use of 40-mm launchers in January, but the LAPD has deployed other types of crowd control weapons in subsequent protests.
At protests downtown over the Trump administration’s immigration policies, LAPD officers deployed tear gas and fired nearly 1,400 less lethal rounds over a six-day period beginning June 9. report Posted on the department’s website.
Officers responded with force after members of the crowd threw rocks, bottles, fireworks and Molotov cocktails at police and burned several vehicles, police officials reported.
Authorities have promised a thorough investigation of all uses of force.
