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Gousse v. City of Los Angeles
Trial Updates:
-- October 22, 2003 | Wednesday
-- October 23, 2003 | Thursday
Dr. Angelo E. Gousse, M.D.
-- Biographical Information |
2001Santa Monica attorney Browne Greene, who is handling the claim, said he didn't know but offered one explanation from an LAPD official he said he talked to: The Rampart officers were on their way to the 77th Street Division station when they saw something amiss with the registration tags on Gousse's car, prompting them to pull him over.
That, Greene said, doesn't explain why the officers took his client to the Rampart station or why it took so long to release him.
"This type of conduct is all too familiar" within the LAPD, especially in view of the Rampart scandal, Greene said.
A federal lawsuit filed last year, which accused the LAPD of illegally targeting members of minority groups for vehicular stops, is being settled before it goes to trial. The suit was filed on behalf of five men who told stories similar to Gousse's, said attorney Catherine Lhamon of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
Another federal suit was filed by an African American judge who alleges that she was forced to lie on hot asphalt in Venice for 30 minutes last summer after being stopped by LAPD officers.
A bill by state Senator Kevin Murray (D-Culver City), an African American lawmaker who was pulled over in 1998 by Beverly Hills police, would require all California law enforcement agencies to study whether profiling occurs.
ACLU : http://archive.aclu.org/news/2001/w032701a.html | 03-27-01
Racial profiling claimed against LAPD The Associated PressLOS ANGELES — A Miami surgeon filed a claim against the Police Department Tuesday, contending that racial profiling led officers to pull him over on a freeway, mistakenly arrest him and give him career-damaging injuries in the process.
“I want to stand up for justice, to stand up for an end to racial profiling,” Dr. Angelo E. Gousse, 37, said at a news conference outside Los Angeles Superior Court. “We cannot allow this to continue.”
The claim, filed with the city attorney’s office, calls for unspecified damages for wrist and arm nerve damage Gousse says occurred when police arrested and tightly handcuffed him Feb. 11 on Interstate 10, then detained him until early the next morning at the Rampart station.
Gousse, who is black, also seeks compensation for civil-rights violations, lost earnings and post traumatic stress.
Police spokesman Sgt. John Pasquariello said no complaint had been filed in connection with the incident before Tuesday, and that police and city attorneys will investigate the claim.
A ban on racial profiling and better oversight and training are among the LAPD reforms the city agreed to in a consent decree finalized in November. The federally monitored reforms stem in large part from a corruption scandal in which Rampart station police admittedly lied under oath and shot and maimed innocent people.
Gousse, wearing braces and bandages on his hands, said the injuries have left him unable to drive, play with his two children or perform the surgical procedures he specializes in. He said he is one of only a few physicians trained in pelvic flow reconstruction, which is used to treat female incontinence.
Gousse said he was pulled over after 10 p.m. as he was returning to his Los Angeles International Airport-area hotel room from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he had attended a tribute to a urology professor.
Interstate 10 is the jurisdiction of the California Highway Patrol, not the LAPD. Gousse attorney Browne Greene said that according to a Rampart officer, Gousse was stopped by officers who saw his vehicle while delivering something to another station.
Instead of approaching Gousse’s rented 2000 Ford Taurus, police shined a light on him and talked to him through a bullhorn as the freeway was closed and about 10 police cars and a helicopter gathered, Gousse said.
“I knew then that I was going to experience a night of terror in Los Angeles,” said Gousse, who came to the United States 18 years ago from Haiti and graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine.
Police ordered him to toss his car keys on the pavement, then to lie face-down on the roadway. “I felt completely humiliated. ... At this point the tears were essentially coming out of my eyes,” he said.
Police arrested and handcuffed him. Gousse said he told police who he was and that the rental car contract was in the glove compartment, but “it was as if I was talking to the pavement.”
Gousse said police knew by his medical ID that he was a physician, but refused to tell them why he was being arrested or why they were driving him to a police station several miles away.
He said one officer responded to his questions by saying, “Hey, boy, you don’t know where you are now? You’re in Los Angeles, California.”
Gousse said officers uncuffed him and put him in a cell at the station, then released him sometime before 2 a.m. Feb. 12. They told him he had been arrested because of a problem with the car’s license plates, but offered no apology, he said.
Gousse said he went to an emergency room after his release to have his wrists examined, and is now under the care of a specialist in Miami. He said he may require surgery, but is hopeful that will not be necessary.
The city attorney has six months to decide whether to reject the claim, Greene said, and Gousse has a year after that in which to file a lawsuit.
CNN AMERICAN MORNINGRacial Profiling
Aired October 21, 2003 - 08:18 ET
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: With us now from our Los Angeles bureau is Dr. Angelo Gousse and his attorney, Browne Green. Good morning, gentlemen.
Thanks for joining us.
DR. ANGELO GOUSSE, SUING LOS ANGELES POLICE: Good morning.
O'BRIEN: Dr. Gousse, let's begin with you.
We've heard a little bit of your story. Tell me about that night. Two o'clock in the morning police pull you over. What happened?
GOUSSE: Well, it was a very terrifying experience because I know I was completely an innocent person driving and having noticed that there was a helicopter that was hovering over the entire arrest. It was a very brutal arrest and having never had such experience -- I have never been arrested in my life. I've never had any encounters with the police in such a fashion, so it was a very terrifying experience.
O'BRIEN: You said in the piece that we just heard from Miguel Marquez that you were driving while black. Do you think this whole entire thing was racially motivated?
O'BRIEN: I think to a great degree, yes, because I think that I had all the evidence right at the scene to indicate that it was not a stolen vehicle. I had a document that Budget Rent-A-Car, a rental contract. I had my medical license with me. I had a valid driver's license and several other identifications with me. So I believe that if it were probably someone of a different color, the issue would have been resolved immediately rather than going through handcuffing and all the pain and suffering I had to endure and to be incarcerated in a police cell at the Rampart subdivision in Los Angeles.
O'BRIEN: Here's what police say. They say you were driving 35 miles an hour in a 65 mile an hour zone. That was a red flag, they say. They also say that the car was reported stolen, so that essentially they were just doing their jobs.
Let me get your lawyer to weigh in on this for me.
Mr. Green, to some degree don't the police have a point? If the car is reported stolen, aren't they just doing their job? BROWNE GREEN, DR. GOUSSE'S ATTORNEY: We don't contest whatsoever the fact that the car was reported stolen. That was totally due to the unbelievable negligence of Budget. Budget, for over a year, had had that car reported as stolen and on 43 other occasions they had rented this car out to various consumers, who they themselves were exposed to the police and to what could have occurred to them, as well as Dr. Gousse. And yet this was never corrected. So Budget put a hot plate and made this man a felon, and he didn't know anything about it.
Now, as far as the stop, yes, the police saw that and they pulled him over. They should have looked into it. But after that, they had no right to brutalize him the way they did. They say he cooperated totally at all times with what they wanted. They could have looked at his documents, his rental contract. They could have looked at his wallet. Why wouldn't they do that? They would have done it for me if I was driving a car. And I definitely believe that.
It's another all too familiar story out of the Rampart Division, where these particular cops came from.
O'BRIEN: Well, that's going to be...
GREEN: And this is the kind of thing that has to be stopped.
O'BRIEN: That's going to have to be our final word this morning.
Brown Green, the attorney; and Dr. Angelo Gousse.
Thank you, gentlemen, for talking with us this morning.
We certainly Appreciate it.
GOUSSE: Thank you for having us.
GREEN: Thank you.
Clients Recent VictoriesDr. Angelo E. Gousse awarded $33 Million by jury in LAPD-Rampart division racial profiling Lawsuit.
Los Angeles, CA (November 19, 2003) - A Los Angeles Superior Court jury, after three days of deliberation, awarded Dr. Angelo E. Gousse $33 million in general damages in his civil lawsuit against the LAPD-Rampart Division, City of Los Angeles and Budget Rent-A-Car Corporation [NYSE:CD]. The jury apportioned 57% of that amount, or $18,810,000, to Budget Rent-A-Car Corporation; and 43% of that amount, or $15,510,000, to the City of Los Angeles/LAPD.
The trial began October 20, 2003 and was heard before the Hon. Elizabeth A. Grimes. Dr. Gousse was represented by Browne Greene with the Santa Monica, CA. law firm of Greene, Broillet, Panish & Wheeler, LLP and Robert W. Kelley with the Office of Sheldon J. Schlesinger, P.A. of Fort Lauderdale, FL. Gousse vs. City of Los Angeles, Case No. BC 252804.
"If it could happen to me," said Dr. Angelo E. Gousse, "it could happen to you. The jury recognized that a great injustice was done to me and voted accordingly, and I am most grateful to them. I know that I would not have been manhandled, disrespected or injured had I been a white man, and that's why I have spoken out about this case from the beginning."
Added Dr. Gousse: "Now that this trial is over, it is my intent to carry the torch lit by Abner Louima, whose civil rights were violated by the NYPD in 1997, by launching Civil Rights Net. As a web-based non-profit organization, Civil Rights Net will function to better educate the public about their civil rights, and provide them with helpful links, such as referrals to law firms and other civil rights advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union."
"The jury correctly appreciated that Budget Rent-A-Car and the police played equal roles in this case and has held them responsible for Dr. Gousse's injuries," said Browne Greene, "but the victory is bittersweet because he will always be traumatized by the jarring way in which the LAPD-Rampart police treated him. We hope that this case sends a strong message across the United States that no one is above the law when it comes to civil rights violations, particularly those sworn to protect those very rights - the police."
Dr. Gousse filed suit June 21, 2001 against the Defendants for civil rights violations, civil battery, false arrest, negligence and loss of consortium. He alleged that Budget Rent-A-Car's negligence set the stage for the LAPD's misconduct, and which caused him permanent injuries.
A Miami, FL. urological reconstructive surgeon, Dr. Gousse, a 40 year-old black man of Haitian descent, came to Los Angeles in February 2001 for a UCLA medical conference. He rented a car from Budget's LAX location that bore the switched plates of another of its cars that had been reported stolen.
Budget's policy was not to allow any of its vehicles to exit the rental lot if its license plate number did not correspond with the license plate number listed in its computer. Dr. Gousse was allowed to leave the lot, even though the license plates on his car were mismatched, and which fact had escaped Budget's attention on 43 other separate occasions with its customers.
On February 11, 2001, Dr. Gousse was driving westbound on the Santa Monica Freeway near Arlington Street when he was stopped by LAPD-Rampart Division officers. Back-up units and a police helicopter were called to the scene, and with their guns aimed at him, the police ordered Dr. Gousse to the ground. He was handcuffed, then pulled up from a prone position, placed in a squad car and taken to Rampart Division. He was arrested, but never read his Miranda rights.
At the scene, Dr. Gousse alleges that the police made no effort to look at his identification or to retrieve the exculpatory car rental documents that were in the glove compartment. He complained that the handcuffs were too tight, but they weren't removed until his hands had gone numb and he was placed in a jail cell. Throughout his almost 2-hour ordeal, Dr. Gousse was subjected to verbal abuse by the police. At the Rampart Station, they learned that the arrest was improper. Instead of releasing him, they began running a tape recorder and tried to ask Dr. Gousse leading questions in an attempt to "cover-up" the police officers' misconduct, but he did not succumb to this ruse.
Law Firm: http://www.dovellaw.com/gousse_victory.php |
Browne Greene
Greene Broillet & Wheeler, LLP
100 Wilshire Blvd., 21st Floor -- Santa Monica, CA 90401-1162
Phone: 310.576.1200 -- Toll Free: 866.576.1200 -- Fax: 310.576.1220
E-mail: inquiry@greene-broillet.com |
Law Firm: http://www.greene-broillet.com/practice-area.php?civil-rights |
Law Firm: http://www.greene-broillet.com/practice-area.php?government-liability |