Opening Statements Begin In Case Claiming Police Abuse

Opening statements are expected today in a civil trial pitting a Palm Springs city maintenance supervisor and his family against Desert Hot Springs police and the city.

Edward Moore, downtown maintenance supervisor for the Palm Springs Department of Parks and Recreation, and his family allege they were brutalized by officers who responded to a hit-and-run accident involving one of Moore’s daughters in front of their Desert Hot Springs home on July 16, 2005.

The daughter got in an accident when she was arriving home, and the other vehicle left the scene. People at Moore’s home wrote down the vehicle’s license plate number, and a family member called 911, according to court documents. Police officers arrived to investigate the accident and Moore asked them to find the suspected hit-and-run vehicle.

One officer, Sgt. Anthony Sclafani, began yelling at Moore “while another officer came up behind Moore, grabbed Moore’s neck, sprayed Moore … in the face with pepper spray, and tackled Moore to the ground,” according to the complaint.

Officers ordered several family members to stay inside the house, grabbed the mother of three of Moore’s children, twisted her arm, handcuffed her and “smashed her into the wall, face first,” the complaint stated, adding that the woman lost consciousness and later awoke pinned to the ground by officers who fired pepper spray in her face.

The complaint said police sprayed other family members with pepper spray and choked another female family member and shoved another against a wall. The officers also shoved Moore to the ground, kicked him and “choked him into unconsciousness,” it said.

Moore and a female family member were taken to jail and later released.

The complaint by Moore stated that police had a history of falsely arresting him and denying him police services.

Moore and members of his family filed a $15 million lawsuit against the city and police a year later. The trial will be heard by a jury.

Attorneys for the officers and the city said Moore was “hostile” and “verbally abusive” when the first officer arrived after the hit-and-run. The officer called for backup because of the number of people milling outside the house and because of Moore’s attitude, defense attorneys stated in a trial brief.

The plaintiffs’ complaint stated Moore, who is African American, had previously sued the city of Desert Hot Springs, where he used to work for the Department of Public Works, for racial discrimination in 1997.

Five officers — Sclafani, Valentich, Matthew Drew, David Henderson and O’Connor — are named in the lawsuit. Henderson was sentenced to probation and community service in federal court in Los Angeles last August for using a Taser on a handcuffed suspect, and Sclafani is accused in federal court of using a Taser to stun suspects.