In 2015 an interaction between San Diego County sheriff's deputies and a man being restrained resulted in the man having a mental health crisis and dying. Now, the man's family has been granted $85 million.
On Tuesday, a federal jury issued the verdict in the negligence and wrongful death lawsuit against San Diego County for Lucky Phounsy's death.
Phounsy's confrontation with the deputies, one of whom has since served jail time for assaulting women while on duty, resulted in his death and now the largest compensation in a civil verdict in the county in recent history, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The verdict was delivered after a two-week trial. An attorney for the family, Tim Scott, shared with KGTV they had asked the jury for a "verdict that reflected the truth about his death and that reflected justice for what was taken from this family."
"We think that the jury verdict did deliver both truth and justice," Scott said to KGTV.
The lawsuit was initially filed in 2015 after Phounsy, 32, dialed 911 earlier in the year when he began having a mental health crisis. According to the lawsuit, he had started to have delusions that he was going to be hurt along with his wife and two children.
The lawsuit claimed that when deputies arrived on the scene, they were "unnecessarily confrontational, aggressive, and profane," which worsened the situation.
Due to their actions, the suit said that Phounsy became "frightened and confused" as they attempted to put him in handcuffs.
"The deputies did nothing to de-escalate the situation, as they were aggressive and profane," the lawsuit said, adding that as Phounsy became more distressed, he was tased multiple times by the deputies stun guns.
Along with being shocked numerous times, he was also punched and struck with a baton before an ambulance took him away. During the trip to the hospital, he was being held down by a deputy when his heart stopped, and while he was resuscitated, he died days later in the hospital.
His death was determined to be accidental due to a brain injury that resulted in his heart-stopping after the confrontation and restraint, meaning the injuries from the deputies did not cause his heart attack, according to the coroner.
The autopsy also revealed that he had been in a "stimulant drug-related psychotic state" during the interaction with the deputies.
While the county determined that deputies used appropriate force as they alleged Phounsy was suffering paranoid delusions from "illicit drug use," the family's attorneys argued no drugs were found in his system. Instead, they claimed the delusion stemmed from his insomnia as he had not slept the three days prior.
A statement from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department shared that it will meet with its legal counsel to "evaluate the verdict further."
"As always, our ultimate goal is to provide exceptional law enforcement services in San Diego County," the statement said.
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