Los Angeles, California

In 2020, David Bond was shot and injured by a police projectile during a protest in response to the murder of George Floyd. Bond claims that he had been peacefully protesting and following orders from officers, but still had to use a tennis racket and a salad bowl as shields against the projectiles. This lawsuit was one of many filed against the LAPD, which has spurred reforms such as training in the use of these kinds of projectiles.

The city’s payouts include settlements of cases brought by private persons and cases brought by police officers against the Los Angeles Police Department. These payouts are connected to a longer history of the city paying over $245 million to remedy legal claims against the police department over the past 5.5 years.

Garvin, who led the Department’s Bomb Detection Canine Section, reported an incident that happened at Los Angeles International Airport in 2017 where he believed a dog handler sabotaged another dog handler, “by purposefully confusing his peer’s dog during a Federal bomb-sniffing certification test.” Garvin also reported inappropriate professional relationships in the Department. After Garvin’s reports, claims started to arise that Garvin was creating a hostile work environment and made racially charged remarks. The claims against Garvin were later determined to be baseless, but Garvin remained demoted and would not be reinstated to his original position.

In 2015, The Wall Street Journal released an analysis of settlement totals from instances of police misconduct among the ten largest local police departments in the nation. Many of the cases involved in the analysis involved alleged beatings, shootings, and wrongful imprisonment. The analysis determined that, between 2010 and 2014, the City of Los Angeles spent $57.1 million on police misconduct cases. A separate analysis conducted by The Los Angeles Times in 2018 concluded that the city paid more than $190 million for police misconduct settlements from July 2005 to 2018.