California
LA to pay $11.8 million to man blinded by police projectile during Dodgers celebration
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The city of Los Angeles must pay $11.8 million to a man who was blinded by a projectile fired into a crowd by police officers while he was celebrating the Dodgers 2020 World Series win.
A federal jury ordered the payment Thursday after a trial brought by 27-year-old Isaac Castellanos, who was in college when he was struck in the face by the projectile while peacefully celebrating in downtown LA early Oct. 28, 2020.
Castellanos was permanently blinded in one eye and filed a federal lawsuit in 2022, alleging excessive use of force. According to the complaint, Los Angeles Police Department officers advanced toward the crowd and began firing projectiles, also known as “ less lethal” munitions, without warning. Less lethal munitions can include rubber bullets and bean bags.
At the conclusion of the trial, the jury deliberated for less than two hours before returning a verdict. Castellanos, sitting next to his attorneys, was brought to tears.
“He is incredibly relieved and feels very vindicated,” Castellanos’ attorney, Monique Alarcon, said. “He’s really hopeful ... that this will cause the LAPD to take a hard look at their crowd control practices.”
The LA City Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Castellanos was a senior at California State University, Long Beach when he was struck, and Alarcon said he had a promising future as a professional esports player before he was blinded. Just a few weeks before he was hit, he had won first place in a tournament, winning a $40,000 prize with a teammate.
“He was at a pivotal point in his life ... and this completely derailed him,” Alarcon said.
The LAPD has been the subject of several lawsuits over the use of less lethal munitions for crowd control.
After journalists were hit by projectiles during June protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown since the start of the president’s second term, a federal judge blocked LA police from using rubber bullets and other less lethal munitions against reporters.
A federal judge in January also issued an injunction against the LAPD blocking the use of 40 mm launchers, a type of less lethal munition, in any crowd control situation.
In 2021, California restricted the use of less lethal munitions until alternatives to force have been tried to control a crowd. Police cannot aim “indiscriminately” into a crowd or at the head, neck or any other vital organs. They also cannot fire solely for a curfew violation, verbal threats toward officers, or not complying with directions given by law enforcement.
North Carolina
Jury finds Uber liable for actions of driver who grabbed rider’s inner thigh
Rideshare giant Uber is liable for the behavior of a driver who grabbed the inner thigh of a passenger as she was leaving the front seat of his car and asked if he could “keep her” with him, a jury in North Carolina found Monday.
The federal jury in Charlotte awarded the plaintiff $5,000 in damages, said Ellyn Hurd, one of the plaintiff’s lawyers.
The so-called bellwether case is part of a broader group of sexual assault lawsuits filed against Uber in multiple jurisdictions around the country and is the third to go to trial. In February, a federal jury in Arizona ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to a woman who said one of its drivers raped her during a trip using the platform. Last year, a California jury found Uber not liable for the alleged assault of a rider.
Uber, in an emailed statement, took note of the relatively small financial judgment in the North Carolina case and that the jury found that battery had occurred and not sexual assault.
“The jury’s award here should further bring these cases back to reality, as it represents a tiny fraction of previous demands,” the Uber statement said, adding that the company has strong grounds for appeal because it believes the jury was incorrectly instructed on the question of liability.
The AP does not typically name people who have said they were sexually abused unless they have given consent through their attorneys or come forward publicly.
Hurd said the verdict bodes well for other plaintiffs, saying that Uber, not the plaintiffs, selected the North Carolina case as a test case for the broader group of pending lawsuits.
“This was a case that they thought going in that they were going to win,” Hurd said. “They picked all the criteria — this is the case that they picked, that they wanted to try. And the jury believed the plaintiff and they lost.”
The lawsuits follow years of criticism of Uber’s safety record, including thousands of incidents of sexual assault reported by both passengers and drivers. Because Uber drivers are categorized as gig workers — working as contractors, rather than company employees — the platform has long maintained it’s not liable for their misconduct.
The judge presiding over the group of lawsuits, U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer, ruled that Uber was a “common carrier” under North Carolina law and was thus liable for the driver’s action. Breyer said Uber holds itself out to the public as a transportation provider through its advertising and the control it exerts over Uber rides and the safety of its passengers. North Carolina could have explicitly exempted Uber and other rideshare providers from its common carrier liability, as Florida and Texas have, but did not, he said.
Hurd said that means the North Carolina jury only had to decide whether the attack happened.
The driver denied touching the plaintiff, Uber said. The company said the plaintiff never reported the incident to law enforcement and it only learned of it when the lawsuit was filed three years later.
Hurd said just because the plaintiff didn’t report it to law enforcement doesn’t mean it’s not true. During the trial, which started Wednesday and wrapped up Monday, the jury heard testimony from the driver, the plaintiff and friends of the plaintiff who corroborated her story, Hurd said.
Breyer, who is based in San Francisco in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is due to hear two more sexual assault test case trials against Uber. The next is scheduled for mid-September in San Francisco.
California
Bear-suit luxury car scam ends in insurance fraud sentences for 3
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three people in California have been sentenced for insurance fraud in a bizarre scam that involved someone dressed in a bear costume damaging luxury cars.
The California Insurance Department said the three used a person in a bear suit to stage fake attacks inside a Rolls-Royce and two Mercedes in 2024, then submitted fraudulent claims seeking nearly $142,000 in payouts from insurance companies. The department called it “Operation Bear Claw.”
Two Los Angeles-area men and a woman pleaded no contest to felony insurance fraud and were sentenced to a weekend jail program, followed by probation, the department said in a news release Thursday. Two of them were ordered to pay over $50,000 in restitution.
A fourth person faces a court hearing in September.
The group is accused of providing several videos from the San Bernardino Mountains of a bear moving inside the vehicles to the insurance companies as part of their damage claims, the department said. Photos provided by the insurance department show what appeared to be scratches on the seats and doors.
A California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist reviewed the footage and concluded it was “clearly a human in a bear suit,” the insurance department said.
After executing a search warrant, detectives found the bear costume in the suspects’ home, the department said.
Bears breaking into homes or trash cans in search of food have become a problem in California from Lake Tahoe in the Sierra down to the foothill suburbs of Los Angeles, where some have been known to raid refrigerators and take dips in backyard pools and hot tubs.
New York
College student from China charged with illegally taking photos of U.S. military planes
A college student from China has been charged with illegally taking photos of U.S. military planes in Nebraska during a multistate road trip that included a stop at an Air Force base in South Dakota.
Tianrui Liang, 21, was arrested April 7 at a New York airport while trying to leave the U.S. for Glasgow, Scotland, where he attends school, the FBI said in a court filing.
Liang admitted that he got out of a car on a public road in late March and took photos of an RC-135, a reconnaissance aircraft, and an E-4B at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, the FBI said.
The E-4B, known as the “Nightwatch”, can serve as an airborne command center for a president and military officials in times of emergency, according to the Air Force.
The FBI said it’s illegal to photograph or sketch defense installations without approval. Images of both planes are available online.
Liang told investigators that it was “legal to take pictures of the sky, but he knew it was illegal to take pictures of the planes on the ground,” the FBI said. He said they were for his personal collection, the FBI said.
Liang’s attorney, Jeff Thomas, declined to comment Tuesday. Liang has not appeared yet in federal court in Omaha.
Liang flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada on March 26 and met a friend who is a college student in New York, the FBI said. They drove across the U.S. border in Washington state before Liang drove alone to see Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, according to the affidavit. The FBI said he was also interested in going to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
Other cases involving military sites have been filed against college students from China.
Five men were charged with lying and trying to cover their tracks after they were confronted in the dark in 2023 near a Michigan military site where thousands of people had gathered for drills. They graduated from the University of Michigan and apparently returned to China months before they were charged and have never appeared in court.
In 2020, two Chinese nationals who were pursuing master’s degrees at the University of Michigan were sentenced to prison for illegally taking photographs at a naval air station in Key West, Florida.
LA to pay $11.8 million to man blinded by police projectile during Dodgers celebration
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The city of Los Angeles must pay $11.8 million to a man who was blinded by a projectile fired into a crowd by police officers while he was celebrating the Dodgers 2020 World Series win.
A federal jury ordered the payment Thursday after a trial brought by 27-year-old Isaac Castellanos, who was in college when he was struck in the face by the projectile while peacefully celebrating in downtown LA early Oct. 28, 2020.
Castellanos was permanently blinded in one eye and filed a federal lawsuit in 2022, alleging excessive use of force. According to the complaint, Los Angeles Police Department officers advanced toward the crowd and began firing projectiles, also known as “ less lethal” munitions, without warning. Less lethal munitions can include rubber bullets and bean bags.
At the conclusion of the trial, the jury deliberated for less than two hours before returning a verdict. Castellanos, sitting next to his attorneys, was brought to tears.
“He is incredibly relieved and feels very vindicated,” Castellanos’ attorney, Monique Alarcon, said. “He’s really hopeful ... that this will cause the LAPD to take a hard look at their crowd control practices.”
The LA City Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Castellanos was a senior at California State University, Long Beach when he was struck, and Alarcon said he had a promising future as a professional esports player before he was blinded. Just a few weeks before he was hit, he had won first place in a tournament, winning a $40,000 prize with a teammate.
“He was at a pivotal point in his life ... and this completely derailed him,” Alarcon said.
The LAPD has been the subject of several lawsuits over the use of less lethal munitions for crowd control.
After journalists were hit by projectiles during June protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown since the start of the president’s second term, a federal judge blocked LA police from using rubber bullets and other less lethal munitions against reporters.
A federal judge in January also issued an injunction against the LAPD blocking the use of 40 mm launchers, a type of less lethal munition, in any crowd control situation.
In 2021, California restricted the use of less lethal munitions until alternatives to force have been tried to control a crowd. Police cannot aim “indiscriminately” into a crowd or at the head, neck or any other vital organs. They also cannot fire solely for a curfew violation, verbal threats toward officers, or not complying with directions given by law enforcement.
North Carolina
Jury finds Uber liable for actions of driver who grabbed rider’s inner thigh
Rideshare giant Uber is liable for the behavior of a driver who grabbed the inner thigh of a passenger as she was leaving the front seat of his car and asked if he could “keep her” with him, a jury in North Carolina found Monday.
The federal jury in Charlotte awarded the plaintiff $5,000 in damages, said Ellyn Hurd, one of the plaintiff’s lawyers.
The so-called bellwether case is part of a broader group of sexual assault lawsuits filed against Uber in multiple jurisdictions around the country and is the third to go to trial. In February, a federal jury in Arizona ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to a woman who said one of its drivers raped her during a trip using the platform. Last year, a California jury found Uber not liable for the alleged assault of a rider.
Uber, in an emailed statement, took note of the relatively small financial judgment in the North Carolina case and that the jury found that battery had occurred and not sexual assault.
“The jury’s award here should further bring these cases back to reality, as it represents a tiny fraction of previous demands,” the Uber statement said, adding that the company has strong grounds for appeal because it believes the jury was incorrectly instructed on the question of liability.
The AP does not typically name people who have said they were sexually abused unless they have given consent through their attorneys or come forward publicly.
Hurd said the verdict bodes well for other plaintiffs, saying that Uber, not the plaintiffs, selected the North Carolina case as a test case for the broader group of pending lawsuits.
“This was a case that they thought going in that they were going to win,” Hurd said. “They picked all the criteria — this is the case that they picked, that they wanted to try. And the jury believed the plaintiff and they lost.”
The lawsuits follow years of criticism of Uber’s safety record, including thousands of incidents of sexual assault reported by both passengers and drivers. Because Uber drivers are categorized as gig workers — working as contractors, rather than company employees — the platform has long maintained it’s not liable for their misconduct.
The judge presiding over the group of lawsuits, U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer, ruled that Uber was a “common carrier” under North Carolina law and was thus liable for the driver’s action. Breyer said Uber holds itself out to the public as a transportation provider through its advertising and the control it exerts over Uber rides and the safety of its passengers. North Carolina could have explicitly exempted Uber and other rideshare providers from its common carrier liability, as Florida and Texas have, but did not, he said.
Hurd said that means the North Carolina jury only had to decide whether the attack happened.
The driver denied touching the plaintiff, Uber said. The company said the plaintiff never reported the incident to law enforcement and it only learned of it when the lawsuit was filed three years later.
Hurd said just because the plaintiff didn’t report it to law enforcement doesn’t mean it’s not true. During the trial, which started Wednesday and wrapped up Monday, the jury heard testimony from the driver, the plaintiff and friends of the plaintiff who corroborated her story, Hurd said.
Breyer, who is based in San Francisco in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is due to hear two more sexual assault test case trials against Uber. The next is scheduled for mid-September in San Francisco.
California
Bear-suit luxury car scam ends in insurance fraud sentences for 3
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three people in California have been sentenced for insurance fraud in a bizarre scam that involved someone dressed in a bear costume damaging luxury cars.
The California Insurance Department said the three used a person in a bear suit to stage fake attacks inside a Rolls-Royce and two Mercedes in 2024, then submitted fraudulent claims seeking nearly $142,000 in payouts from insurance companies. The department called it “Operation Bear Claw.”
Two Los Angeles-area men and a woman pleaded no contest to felony insurance fraud and were sentenced to a weekend jail program, followed by probation, the department said in a news release Thursday. Two of them were ordered to pay over $50,000 in restitution.
A fourth person faces a court hearing in September.
The group is accused of providing several videos from the San Bernardino Mountains of a bear moving inside the vehicles to the insurance companies as part of their damage claims, the department said. Photos provided by the insurance department show what appeared to be scratches on the seats and doors.
A California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist reviewed the footage and concluded it was “clearly a human in a bear suit,” the insurance department said.
After executing a search warrant, detectives found the bear costume in the suspects’ home, the department said.
Bears breaking into homes or trash cans in search of food have become a problem in California from Lake Tahoe in the Sierra down to the foothill suburbs of Los Angeles, where some have been known to raid refrigerators and take dips in backyard pools and hot tubs.
New York
College student from China charged with illegally taking photos of U.S. military planes
A college student from China has been charged with illegally taking photos of U.S. military planes in Nebraska during a multistate road trip that included a stop at an Air Force base in South Dakota.
Tianrui Liang, 21, was arrested April 7 at a New York airport while trying to leave the U.S. for Glasgow, Scotland, where he attends school, the FBI said in a court filing.
Liang admitted that he got out of a car on a public road in late March and took photos of an RC-135, a reconnaissance aircraft, and an E-4B at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, the FBI said.
The E-4B, known as the “Nightwatch”, can serve as an airborne command center for a president and military officials in times of emergency, according to the Air Force.
The FBI said it’s illegal to photograph or sketch defense installations without approval. Images of both planes are available online.
Liang told investigators that it was “legal to take pictures of the sky, but he knew it was illegal to take pictures of the planes on the ground,” the FBI said. He said they were for his personal collection, the FBI said.
Liang’s attorney, Jeff Thomas, declined to comment Tuesday. Liang has not appeared yet in federal court in Omaha.
Liang flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada on March 26 and met a friend who is a college student in New York, the FBI said. They drove across the U.S. border in Washington state before Liang drove alone to see Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, according to the affidavit. The FBI said he was also interested in going to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
Other cases involving military sites have been filed against college students from China.
Five men were charged with lying and trying to cover their tracks after they were confronted in the dark in 2023 near a Michigan military site where thousands of people had gathered for drills. They graduated from the University of Michigan and apparently returned to China months before they were charged and have never appeared in court.
In 2020, two Chinese nationals who were pursuing master’s degrees at the University of Michigan were sentenced to prison for illegally taking photographs at a naval air station in Key West, Florida.
