LOS ANGELES – The family of a black man shot dead by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in August filed a $ 35 million lawsuit against the county for “serious and substantial damage” resulting from the death of Dijon Kizzee, said the lawyers on Thursday.
The figure includes $ 25 million for Kizzee’s father, Edwin Kizzee, and $ 10 million for economic costs and damages to his assets “arising from the intentional and / or negligent infliction of damages,” said Carl Douglas, one of the lawyers. of the family.
The complaint, which Douglas said was filed on Wednesday, alleges that the county did not adequately train the deputies involved and that Kizzee “did nothing to justify the use of serious and irrational force against him.”
“We are here because there is a civil rights virus that is spreading through the sheriff’s department in Los Angeles County,” said Douglas, one of several civil rights lawyers representing Kizzee’s family. “There is a virus of excessive force against the black and brown residents of this community.”
Lawyer Benjamin Crump, who also represents Kizzee, along with the families of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd – all blacks killed during police meetings – said that without ending police brutality and systemic racism, 2021 will be just as ” prolific ”As 2020.
“That’s why we filed this $ 35 million claim, to send a message from the top of the mountain that we are not going to continue to allow people who pay taxes to continue to kill our children,” he said.
The county did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday. Kizzee’s lawyers intend to file a lawsuit in the state court if Los Angeles County officials reject the claim. The county has 45 days to respond.
Dijon Kizzee, 29, died on August 31 in southern Los Angeles after a brief but deadly meeting with two sheriff’s deputies who were not publicly identified. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in September that officers tried to stop Kizzee for an unspecified “traffic violation”, but Kizzee did not stop and ran after leaving his bike.
According to the sheriff’s department report, the officers returned to the car and located Kizzee a few blocks away. During the confrontation, Kizzee raised his hands before lowering them and punching one of the deputies in the face. Kizzee reportedly dropped a gun and “made a motion” to pick it up, prompting deputies to shoot him more than a dozen times, the department said.
According to a September autopsy report from the Los Angeles Medical Examiner-Coroner office, Kizzee suffered 16 gunshot wounds to his entire body. The form of death was considered homicide by the police authorities.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, family lawyers said they still don’t understand why Kizzee was stopped.
“Was it because he was a man walking while black in a black and brown community? The evidence points to something as ominous as that, ”said Douglas.
According to an independent autopsy commissioned by the victim’s family, Kizzee did not die from gunshot wounds, but from suffocation after his lungs filled with blood “while he was lying on the floor with shortness of breath”.
Douglas accused deputies of not giving immediate medical aid while Kizzee was dying.
Kizzee’s aunt, Fletcher Fair, said her nephew’s shooting death was “totally dirty”.
“I no longer have respect for sheriffs,” she said. “I don’t even like looking at them on the street anymore.”
Fair described Kizzee as a loving child who did not deserve to die on the street “like an animal”.
“It still hurts,” she said. “I don’t think it will ever go away.”
A sheriff’s department spokesman said the case will be brought to the public prosecutor’s office when the investigation is complete, but he did not say why the deputies involved in Kizzee’s death were not publicly disclosed.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has been the subject of ongoing controversy for months. In November, the county council of supervisors voted to explore ways to remove Sheriff Alex Villanueva from office. It has been the focus of protests across the county over accusations of excessive force.
The Villanueva department is the subject of an ongoing civil rights investigation by the California Attorney General’s Office on the charges. The department was also criticized for its former “gangs of deputies” who adhere to ideologies of white supremacy and aggressive policing, according to a request made last year by the US House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee for the Department of Justice investigate the department.