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Riverside County has agreed to pay $350,000 to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by relatives of a drug addict who died after sheriff’s deputies detained him face down while wearing a spit mask on a supermarket checkout counter in Jurupa Valley in 2020.
In an image taken from a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy’s body-worn camera, deputies hold down Ernie Serrano after placing a mask on him to prevent him from spitting on them at the Stater Bros. market in Jurupa Valley on Dec. 15, 2020. Serrano stopped breathing and died. The county agreed in 2024 to pay the family $350,000 to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit. (Courtesy of Riverside County Sheriff’s Department)
A Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit in May after the parties reached an agreement in which the Sheriff’s Department does not admit any wrongdoing in the death of 33-year-old Ernie Teddy Serrano, according to the settlement document.
The litigation is one of the latest for the department, which is under investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office over deaths in jails and uses of force against people in custody.
In December, the county agreed to pay $7.5 million to the family of inmate Christopher Zumwalt who died days after nearly a dozen deputies restrained and shocked him as they removed him from his jail cell. And in December, the parents of San Jacinto resident Alicia Upton, who killed herself in jail, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit.
Family members on Dec. 23, 2020, hold pictures of Ernie Serrano, the man who died in Riverside County Sheriff’s Department custody during his arrest on Dec. 15 in Jurupa Valley. The family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit, which was settled in 2024 with the county not admitting any wrongdoing by deputies. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Sheriff Chad Bianco, who has dismissed the Attorney General’s Office probe as a political stunt, characterized the Zumwalt settlement as a business decision and the Upton lawsuit as a money grab. Bianco said the Serrano settlement “in no way reflects on the facts of the case or points toward wrongdoing by deputies.”
“The settlement in this case is irrelevant and solely a business decision between attorneys, insurance companies, and risk management of the county,” Bianco said in a written statement. “Part of the decision-making must be the type of evidence and how attorneys will be able to manipulate already anti-law-enforcement jurors with partial truths.”
Serrano’s family members have said he had struggled with drug addiction for several years before his death on Dec. 15, 2020. The previous day, he had scuffled with deputies who responded to his aunt’s house after she asked that Serrano be removed because he was acting erratically.
Two of those deputies, Deputy Travis Cosper and Cpl. Scott Spykstra, were present the next day when employees at a Stater Bros. reported Serrano acting bizarrely. They said he repeatedly tried to pay for items he had already purchased and scuffled with a security guard when told to leave.
When he resisted arrest, deputies arrived and shocked Serrano with a Taser and struck him with a baton, according to a report by the District Attorney’s Office. Those tactics had no effect, but deputies eventually handcuffed him and leaned him onto a checkout counter. They placed a mask on Serrano because he was spitting, the report says.
Minutes later, Serrano is heard in a video from a deputy’s uniform-worn camera saying, “I can’t breathe, man. Let me go.” Shortly afterward, he stopped breathing and could not be revived.
According to the DA’s Office, Chief Forensic Pathologist Mark Fajardo said Serrano died from “acute methamphetamine toxicity” and that he had almost five times the potentially lethal level of meth in his blood. Fajardo also said “other significant conditions contributing to death were physical confrontation with law enforcement and law enforcement-restraint maneuvers.”
The DA’s Office cleared Cosper, Spykstra and deputies Jeffrey Horner, Paul Ferrari and Robert Montanez of any criminal wrongdoing.
The Coroner’s Office has not released the autopsy report publicly despite promises to do so once the litigation concluded.
The $350,000 is far less than the million-dollar-plus settlements and jury awards other plaintiffs have received from the county in wrongful-death cases. Humberto Guizar, the attorney for Serrano’s family, said that’s because Serrano’s mother, Maria Lowrie, who was the initial plaintiff, died on Dec. 2 from a heart attack. Serrano’s brothers and sisters were then substituted in as plaintiffs.
“The claim is for loss of love and affection; obviously, the mother is going to have a more powerful claim,” Guizar said Monday, June 10.
He also said the county had “a pretty strong argument that methamphetamine was the primary cause of death. I don’t agree with that. The jury has to understand that the use of force was improper. But the minute they know someone had drugs in their system, they are very reluctant to award money.”
Guizar said the family was satisfied with the settlement.
“It brings closure. It brings vindication, either way you look at it,” he said.
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Courtesy : https://www.pressenterprise.com/2024/06/10/county-paid-350000-to-settle-wrongful-death-suit-involving-deputies-in-jurupa-valley-store/