Alex Jimenez , 35

Los Angeles, California
April 13, 2015

Agencies: Los Angeles Police Department California LAPD

Cause of death: Beating


Follow This Case


Last updated: almost 6 years ago

Overview

Los Angeles police handcuffed, beat, Tasered and suffocated a Latino man to death and erased a witness's cellphone video of it, his mother and children claim in court.
     Alex Jimenez died in South Los Angeles on April 13, 2015, when one or more unnamed LAPD officers dropped the handcuffed man to the ground and held him down with a knee to his neck or throat, his mother Maria Hernandez says in the April 19 federal lawsuit.
     Hernandez's son had six minor children. She says that "(d)espite repeated pleas" by her son and others, an officer kept his knee on her son's throat, causing him "to vomit, turn blue, and ultimately die."
     The officers released pressure on Jimenez only when "they realized they were being recorded by a percipient witness," according to the complaint.
     Then the witness "was transported to an LAPD station where he was interviewed and the video was erased from his phone by LAPD officers," Hernandez says.
     She accuses 10 Doe officers of violating her son's civil rights through unlawful arrest, excessive force and refusing medical treatment, and accused the city of inadequately training the officers and of maintaining "an unconstitutional custom, policy, and practice of using deadly force against unarmed civilians." All defendants are accused of false arrest, battery, negligence and wrongful death.
     The family seeks funeral expenses, punitive damages and attorneys' fees.
     Luis Carrillo of Pasadena, one of the family's attorneys, said he does not know why police handcuffed and restrained Jimenez. He said two witnesses say they heard Jimenez yelling to his mother for help at about 2 a.m. that morning last year.