Left: San Diego County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeffrey Guy; Right: Anthony Martinez

SAN DIEGO — San Diego County has settled a $1 million lawsuit filed by the family of an unarmed man with down syndrome after a sheriff’s deputy beat and pepper sprayed him because he mistakenly thought the man was resisting arrest.

Antonio Martinez, 21, left his family’s bakery when he was approached by Deputy Jeffrey Guy, who police say was responding to reports of domestic violence somewhere in the neighborhood.

Martinez’s family claims Antonio functions at the level of a 7-year-old child, and when Deputy Guy commanded Martinez to stop walking, he was confused and frightened. Martinez did not respond in a way that Deputy Guy found satisfactory, so he justified a use of force in apprehending Martinez.

Bystanders watched as Deputy Guy beat Martinez with a metal baton and sprayed him with pepper spray while he screamed and begged for the officer to stop.

Despite the unnecessary use of force, Sheriff Bill Gore says he did not even consider firing Deputy Guy, who was not charged with a crime, and is still employed by the sheriff’s office.

“If I thought he targeted a Down syndrome person, I’d have fired him before the week was out,” Gore said, adding “…that was not the case. The deputy made mistakes.”

Jude Bastile, an attorney hired by Martinez’s family, said he was disappointed that the sheriff’s office refused to fire Guy for police brutality and excessive force.

“Did the Sheriff’s Department learn anything from this incident? I don’t think so,” said Bastile.

A report by Mercury News shows that prior to being hired by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Guy had at least six complaints of excessive force while employed with the San Jose police.

Sheriff Bill Gore is trying to overcome a reputation of being an outsider as he seeks reelection.

Dimitrios Karras filed a lawsuit against the County of San Diego after the Sheriff’s department censored his comments from their Facebook page. Last week, it was announced that Karras settled the lawsuit with the city for $23,000 in legal fees and a symbolic $20.

Karras, owner of Ares Armor, is known locally and in the gun rights community for standing up to ATF agents who were trying to secure a list of all of his company’s client list. The ATF eventually raided his business and secured a list of all of his clients.

According to Brian Doherty at Reason, Karras tells me that “I demanded at the very beginning of the settlement talks that I only want to be paid $20 for myself. I did not want the message to be muddled with financial gain.”

The original comments in question left by Karras on the Facebook page referenced San Diego’s highest ranking Sheriff, William Gore. Gore has a controversial past, which includes a leading role in the FBI team that was responsible for the Ruby Ridge catastrophe that left three dead.

He (Karras) thinks the attempt to censor discussion of Gore’s role in Ruby Ridge is “one of those things where they are so afraid of actual truth” that attempting to hide it just got more people talking about it. Karras thinks it likely their censorship attempts on Facebook did more to spread that information than merely letting the comments sit on the page would have.

Documents show that FBI snipers were given “shoot to kill” orders at Ruby Ridge, which is illegal.

“Under the law, police agents can use deadly force to defend themselves and others from imminent attack, but these snipers were instructed to shoot any adult who was armed and outside the cabin, regardless of whether the adult posed a threat or not. The next morning, an FBI agent shot and wounded Randy Weaver. A few moments later, the same agent shot Weaver’s wife in the head as she was standing in the doorway of her home holding a baby in her arms. The FBI snipers had not yet announced their presence and had not given the Weavers an opportunity to peacefully surrender.”

The exact role that Sheriff William Gore played in this incident is unclear — he plead the 5th and refused to speak to investigators in the Congressional hearing following the incident. However, he was the bureau chief of the FBI office in charge at Ruby Ridge, and likely played a prominent role in the decision making process. The Sheriff’s Department’s abrupt and aggressive censorship of Karras’ posts referencing the Ruby Ridge connection makes us all the more suspicious that he committed wrongdoing.

Gore’s past, as Karras suggests, may explain why he is also a very trigger happy head Sheriff of San Diego. In 2013 Gore’s officers responded to what was initially a domestic disturbance, which they quickly escalated and resulted in the death of one man and two Sheriff’s injured. They were quick to deploy their newly acquired armored Bearcat and a heavily militarized response, even using tear gas against a man who was hiding in his mother’s home.

Gore’s San Diego Sheriff’s department has no shortage of militarized equipment in their hands thanks to all the surplus gear flowing into local law enforcement from the military. They have deployed an LRAD sound cannon in the past and have also been pursuing (possibly securing) surveillance drones.

Published on theantimedia.org by Nick Bernabe.