Woman Files $10 Million Excessive Force Claim Against City Of Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) -- A Los Angeles woman has filed a $10 million excessive force claim against the city of L.A.
Yasmine Morales, 26, alleges in the claim that a police officer shot her in the face with a rubber bullet while she sat in her car near a police brutality protest on May 30.
Morales says she was not participating in the demonstrations, and she was nearly rendered unconscious by the blow.
A representative from the City Attorney's Office was not available for comment.
Morales' lawyer, Neama Rahmani, called the LAPD officer's alleged actions "not tactical police work so much as a drive-by shooting, and an example of the problems LAPD officers caused by deploying aggressive tactics that violated their own guidelines.''
Rahmani continued, saying the incident was "willful officer misconduct'' and that the officer "took deliberate aim and fired while she was driving her car. There's no defense for that brutality.''
Morales said in the claim that she was at Santa Monica and La Cienega boulevards when an officer in a patrol vehicle fired through the open window of her car, striking her forehead.
She said she heard no warning or notice from the officer.
A passenger in her car drove her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she received 20 stitches and was treated for a fractured cheek bone, traumatic brain injury, bruising, and impaired vision, according to her claim.
Often, a claim is a forerunner to a lawsuit.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)