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Jury awards $6M to man run over by San Jose police
KTVU's Henry Lee reports.
San Jose - A federal jury has returned a $6 million verdict for a man who was run over by a San Jose police vehicle in 2018.
San Jose police body-camera video shows officers chasing Andy Martin Martin is running. Officer Alexander Ribeiro is driving and then hits him.
You can hear Martin screaming in pain.
"The officer then literally ran him down, ran him over, felt the tire of his car go over him," said his attorney Ben Nisenbaum.
Nisenbaum said that wasn't all.
"Then, as the officer's getting out of his car, put it in reverse. And backed over him," Nisenbaum said.
Officer Ribeiro told a fellow officer on scene, "So I'm right behind him and he stops right in front of me and the front tire caught his leg."
On the body-cam footage, Martin yells, "My leg hurts!"
"Which leg hurts? asks Ribeiro.
"Both of them!" Martin replies.
"Left or right?" the officer asks.
"My back hurts," Martin added.
While groaning in pain, Martin demands an explanation as to why he was run over.
"Nobody ran you over, dude," the officer says.
Officers say they were responding to reports that Martin and his cousin had threatened to use a weapon against security at a nearby restaurant.
Martin suffered multiple fractures to his pelvis and other broken bones.
A federal jury in Oakland awarded $6 million in damages but said he was 40 percent at fault. The jury concluded that the officer had accidentally run over Martin while trying to cut him off.
"The jury didn't find that the officer intentionally ran Mr. Martin over, but the jury did find that what the officer did was deeply irresponsible," Nisenbaum said.
In a statement, San Jose City Attorney Nora Frimann said, "Despite the allegations of civil rights violations and the use of excessive force by the officer which plaintiff attempted to prove in this case, the jury did not find for the plaintiff on those claims.
"The plaintiff’s injuries occurred as the result of an unfortunate accident as the plaintiff fled the scene of an alleged assault. The officer responding to the call was in his vehicle following the plaintiff and another man at a very slow speed down a trail with lights and siren activated.
"The accident occurred when the officer attempted to turn his vehicle ahead of the plaintiff to block the plaintiff’s path with the vehicle. By his own admission, plaintiff was attempting to evade capture because of an outstanding felony arrest warrant.
"The jury found the plaintiff was 40 percent responsible for the accident which will significantly reduce the amount of the verdict by that percentage. Physicians who examined the plaintiff disagreed on the extent of his injuries and future treatment needs, but unfortunately he did sustain several serious lower body fractures that required surgery."