Opening statements made in trial of ex-cops accused of beating parolee

By Jason Kurosu – City News Service

A defense attorney denied Monday that an ex-Indio police officer beat a gang member during an arrest, telling a jury that his client delivered only “distraction strikes” designed to aid his partner in detaining the fleeing suspect.

Charles Holloway, 30, is charged with assault by a peace officer and his co-defendant, 28-year-old Gerardo Martinez, is being tried on a perjury charge, as well as misdemeanor counts of filing a false police report and being an accessory to a crime.

Both men, who are free on their own recognizance, were discharged by the Indio Police Department last year.

In his opening statement, Holloway’s attorney, Michael D. Schwartz, said the kicks and punches delivered to Ruben Martinez — no relation to his client’s co-defendant — on Sept. 12, 2014, were “not even close to full force,” as the prosecution alleges.

The alleged victim, a member of one of several dozen gangs in Riverside County, was detained around 4 a.m. near the rear of Pueblo Viejo Grill, an Indio restaurant in the 81900 block of Highway 111.

The officers, who responded to “disturbing the peace” reports, chased the suspect to the restaurant. He allegedly tried to flee by squeezing between a storage unit and the building, but ended up running directly toward Officer Martinez, who was waiting for him on the other side.

The jury watched restaurant surveillance video that shows Officer Martinez raising his baton and the suspect putting his arms in the air to surrender, then laying face-first on the ground. As Officer Martinez begins to handcuff the suspect, Holloway comes into the frame from the left and delivers two kicks to Martinez’s left side, according to the prosecution. He then steps over Martinez and punches him several times on his right side, before he is handcuffed, Baranski said.

“Who gets told about the kicks and punches?” Deputy District Attorney Quinn Baranski asked the jury. “The answer is no one.” Baranski said none of the other responding officers who arrived after the suspect was detained were told, and Officer Martinez neglected to include that information in the police report he wrote two days later, which stated that Martinez was arrested without incident.

Martinez was taken to a hospital, but had no significant injuries, according to trial testimony.

Baranski said the assault was only discovered because Pueblo Viejo Grill’s manager checked the surveillance footage after getting word that there had been police activity the previous night.

“What this is really about is just a plain beatdown,” Baranski told jurors.

But Schwartz said footage from another camera shows that Holloway could not see the entire encounter as it unfolded, as he was behind a storage unit while the suspect was being detained. A camera positioned on the other side of the storage unit shows the suspect squeezing himself into the gap between the unit and the restaurant as Holloway is giving chase. After Martinez was detained, Holloway ran back around the storage unit where he saw “an officer with a baton out, which was not out before,” Schwartz said.

“Pursuant to his training, he’s looking to disable the suspect,” according to Schwartz, who also said that some of the punches to Martinez’s right side were actually attempts to restrain his right hand, which was free during part of the arrest.

Ruben Martinez filed a complaint, culminating in an investigation by the sheriff’s department, whose detectives referred the matter to the District Attorney’s Office in October 2014 with a recommendation that charges be filed against the defendants.

Martinez subsequently sued the police department and the city, alleging excessive use of force resulting in injuries. The case was settled last month, leading to a $140,000 award to the ex-con.

Indio police Chief Richard Twiss has said the alleged assault and related actions by the two officers “are not representative of the excellent work the members of the Indio Police Department carry out each day. The department took the allegations seriously and appreciates the trust and confidence the reporting party placed in us. We have a duty and responsibility to investigate allegations and that process began immediately,” the chief said.