A Southern California woman is suing the city of Carlsbad, alleging that police in the San Diego suburb unjustly beat her after she was pulled over for a seatbelt violation.

Cindy Hahn’s attorneys released a bystander’s video that shows an officer punching her and kneeing her body as another officer struggles to handcuff her on a patch of grass. Hahn is lying on her side, pleading for help before the officer ties her wrists.

The complaint, filed Friday in federal court in San Diego, says Hahn was diagnosed with head and brain contusions during a visit to the emergency room after the incident on July 31, 2013, and subsequently diagnosed with a concussion. It says the altercation caused permanent memory loss, brain trauma and other physical and emotional harm.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from Carlsbad, a coastal city of 110,000 people north of San Diego, and five police officers. It alleges violation of civil rights, negligence and battery.

Carlsbad Police Chief Neil Gallucci said the lawsuit prohibited him from publicly discussing specifics. “I want to assure the public that we are prepared to provide a complete and detailed account of the facts of this incident in a courtroom, including what is not shown on the video released by the plaintiff’s attorney,” he said.

Four of the five officers named in the lawsuit remain employees of Carlsbad police, said Kristina Ray, a city spokeswoman. One officer who didn’t figure prominently in the complaint left the department last year for reasons that Ray would not disclose.

Hahn, who is represented by high-profile Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos, claims officers retaliated against her for calling a nonemergency police hotline to report that she felt harassed by Officer Kenyatte Valentine. Hahn, then 40, was leaving a birthday party with her 11- and seven-year-old children and asked Valentine what he was doing in front of a car whose alarm had sounded. According to the lawsuit, the officer responded with a profanity.

Valentine followed Hahn in her car after she called to complain, stopped her for a seatbelt violation, ordered her to leave the vehicle, and beat her while her children waited in the back seat, according to the lawsuit. Another officer, identified in court documents as Jody Knisley, joined Valentine and allegedly punched Hahn in the face “until she was limp” and her “clothes were almost ripped off.”

The San Diego County district attorney’s office charged Hahn with resisting arrest and battery on a peace officer — both felonies — but dropped the case in July. Geragos said prosecutors dropped the case after he gave them the video.

Steve Walker, a spokesman for the district attorney, said, “When we dismiss charges, it is because we cannot prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Geragos said he also shared the video with the city of Carlsbad, whose attorneys responded that they saw “no problem” with the officers’ behaviour. “The video alone clearly, clearly shows felonious behaviour on behalf of the officers,” Geragos said.

Geragos said he waited to file the lawsuit and share the video until police officers testified at a preliminary hearing in Hahn’s criminal case, calling it a strategic decision.

“I wanted to get the cop on the record testifying, which is astonishing if your read his testimony. He saw no hitting, didn’t see anybody hit her in the face, blah, blah, blah,” Geragos said.

The Carlsbad Police Officers Association, the union representing the city’s officers, didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

Hahn, who is from the Los Angeles suburb of Valencia and the daughter of a reserve police officer, told KCBS-TV in Los Angeles that her son still talks about the confrontation.

“The only thing that he’ll talk to me about is, ‘I couldn’t protect you, Mom,’ ” she said.

Sept, 29, 2015. San Diego, CA. USA| The Hi-Lite Theater’s alley way where police shot and killed a manI.|Photos by Jamie Scott Lytle.Copyright.

We’re awaiting a decision from U.S.  District Judge William Q. Hays on whether he’ll allow the release of a surveillance video in the April 30 police shooting of an unarmed, mentally ill man in San Diego’s Midway neighborhood.

If it’s made public, the video will provide insight into the city’s official version of what happened versus the perspective of those who have seen the footage. Beyond that, the situation opens a window into understanding how police officers’ use of deadly force is judged and what might have been done to prevent something like this from happening.

Lawyers for the city have said that Fridoon Rawshan Nehad threatened San Diego police officer Neal Browder with a metallic pen that looked like a knife before the officer shot and killed him in an alleyway. But an employee of a nearby boat equipment business who watched the business’ surveillance footage said the video shows Nehad didn’t threaten Browder. The shooting, the employee said, was hasty and unprovoked. Nehad’s family shares that opinion and filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city.

These are the big issues to understand before the potential release of any video.

How will the district attorney decide whether to prosecute Browder?

San Diego police have forwarded their investigation into Browder’s actions to District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who is still weighing the case for potential criminal charges. Her decision to prosecute will be based on a relatively straightforward precedent from two U.S. Supreme Court cases from the 1980s.

Law enforcement officers can use deadly force if they believe there’s an imminent threat of deadly force against them or someone else. Crucially, the standard is taken from what a so-called “reasonable officer” would believe at the time, not with the benefit of hindsight. In this case, for instance, it matters less that Nehad didn’t end up having a knife and more whether a reasonable officer in the same position as Browder would think Nehad had one.

“It’s going to come down to whether there was a reasonable belief that he had a blade and that he was close enough to use it,” said Phil Stinson, a professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and an expert in officer-involved shootings.

What was Browder doing before the shooting?

Everything that Browder did before the instant he shot Nehad has no bearing on whether the shooting was justified under the law. Again, what matters is what Browder felt at the time of the shooting and whether that belief was reasonable.

Browder arrived at the scene in response to a 911 call saying that a man with a knife was threatening people. The city hasn’t said much about the officer’s actions prior to the shooting. But Wesley Doyle, the boat business employee who watched the surveillance video, said the police cruiser’s emergency lights weren’t turned on when Browder arrived in his car, Browder stepped out of the car around the driver’s side door leaving nothing between him and Nehad and took a relaxed stance before suddenly raising his weapon and shooting Nehad.

Even if Browder’s initial decisions aren’t considered factors in any possible criminal case against him, it doesn’t mean they were good ones. Police departments around the country are beginning to recognize this concern, according to a recent report from the nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum, and are considering holding officers accountable if they failed to de-escalate a situation before it reached a point where deadly force was necessary.

Video recordings of police shootings from across the country are fueling this change, the report said.

“In many of these cases, the officers’ use of force has already been deemed ‘justified,’ and prosecutors have declined to press criminal charges,” the report said. “But that does not mean that the uses of force are considered justified by many people in the community.”

San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman has not indicated whether Browder did anything wrong, though she did change departmental policy to require officers to turn on body cameras prior to initiating contact with suspects – Browder’s wasn’t on during the shooting. Browder also returned to active duty in early June.

What was Nehad doing before the shooting?

By contrast, Nehad’s actions before the shooting are important in any case against Browder. It matters whether Nehad was a threat.

Here, there’s a major discrepancy between the city’s take and others’. In its response to the lawsuitfiled by Nehad’s family, the city implies that Nehad was rushing toward the officer. Doyle said the video shows Nehad was slowing his walking and might have even stopped completely before the shooting. The lawyer for Nehad’s family, who has also seen the video, characterized Nehad’s pace as “strolling or ambling along” and said he stopped before he was shot.

How much does the distance matter?

Probably a lot.

For decades, law enforcement officers across the country have been taught that a suspect armed with a knife could stab an officer before a cop could draw and fire his gun if the suspect was within 21 feet. At a May conference of police chiefs, department leaders worried that officers have used the 21-foot rule by itself to justify shooting and killing suspects who were within that distance. That perspective, the chiefs said, was outdated and needed to change in favor of promoting de-escalation tactics.

Still, in this case, the distance between Nehad and Browder is a big point of contention. The city claims Nehad was 10 to 15 feet away from Browder when the shooting happened. Doyle said the two were about 15 feet away from each other. The lawyer for Nehad’s family says the distance was approximately 25 feet when the shooting occurred.

It’s unknown if the video footage will reveal the exact distance between Browder and Nehad when the shooting happened.

What is not in the video?

By all accounts, the video is high quality and provides a clear picture of what happened. It is, however, lacking sound. This is another cause of dispute. The city says Browder was yelling at Nehad to drop the knife. The Nehad family lawyer says Browder said he didn’t remember whether he said anything before the shooting.

The video also will provide just one perspective of the shooting. Indeed, Zimmerman has argued the video should stay sealed because it’s one piece of evidence, not the entirety of the case.

Liam Dillon is senior reporter and assistant editor for Voice of San Diego. He leads VOSD’s investigations and writes about how regular people interact with local government. What should he write about next? Please contact him directly at[email protected] or 619.550.5663.

An unarmed man who was shot to death in April in the Midway District by a San Diego police officer whose body camera wasn’t switched on was not advancing toward the officer when he was shot, according to a sworn statement by a witness who repeatedly watched a security video.

An investigation by the San Diego Union Tribune and interviews with someone who watched the video many times confirms that Nehad was not a threat to the police:

“The account of the last moments of Fridoon Rawshan Nehad is contained in the declaration from Wesley Doyle, 38, a former employee of KECO Inc., a nearby business whose security cameras captured the encounter with Officer Neal Browder.

“The KECO video was shocking to me and, I believe, to anybody else who sees it,” Doyle’s statement says. “Officer Browder did not even get into a shooting stance. The shooting appeared to be unprovoked; Officer Browder appeared to shoot Fridoon hastily.”

Doyle said he watched the video 20 to 30 times, and it shows Nehad walking at “an average pace” down an alley behind an adult bookstore on Hancock Street. A police car then pulled up and Officer Browder exited the car.

The video shows Browder stepped around the driver’s side door, Doyle said.

“Fridoon continued to walk toward a dumpster at the northeast end of the alley,” the statement says. “Without notice, when Fridoon was about 15 feet away, Officer Browder raised his weapon and shot Fridoon.”

The statement says Fridoon’s pace “slowed considerably” when Browder drew his weapon, and Doyle said he believed Nehad had “actually come to a complete stop” just before Browder fired.

The city places the distance between the two men at 10 to 15 feet and closing at the time of the shooting. The city filed its differing account in court papers for the federal civil-rights case filed by Nehad’s family.

The city said Nehad “emerged from the shadows of an alley” and headed directly for the officer, brandishing “a metallic pen that appeared to be a knife.”

Browder told him to drop what was in his hand, but the city says Nehad kept advancing and described him as “closing the substantial distance” between himself and the officer before Browder fired.

The video was turned over to police investigating the shooting by the business. Despite requests by The San Diego Union-Tribune and other media, it has not been released. The video does not have audio, so whatever was said between the two is not recorded.

Doyle’s statement, first reported by the online news site Voice of San Diego, adds a new twist to the shooting of Nehad, a 31-year-old with a history of mental illness and one prior arrest in 2008. The shooting was already controversial because Browder, though outfitted with one of the department’s body cameras, never activated it – a move that violated department policy.

Browder, a 27-year veteran of the department, went back on full patrol duty on June 1, according to a spokesman for the department.

A spokesman for District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said the case is under review to determine if Browder will face any charges.

Doyle said in an interview Tuesday that after studying the video at the marine supply business KECO Inc., he contacted the police department and city officials including the offices of Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Councilwoman Marti Emerald.

He said he never heard from them, nor from the offices of Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego. A spokesman for Peters said the office didn’t have a record of the call, though Doyle said his phone records show he made the call on May 2.

Faulconer spokesman Craig Gustafson said Tuesday the office received a voicemail message from a man about the shooting, but the caller did not leave a name and phone number to contact him. The message was forwarded to the police department as well as the Citizens Review Board on Police Practices.

Doyle said he was visited by two San Diego detectives, whose demeanor he described as intimidating. He said he contacted a lawyer for the family to get the information out.

“I really just want this video to come out,” he said.

After the suit was filed the company agreed to turn over the video, said Louis “Skip” Miller, the lawyer for the family. Miller said he’s seen the video, which is under a court protective order, and Doyle’s description is accurate.

He said from his viewing it appears as if Nehad may not have known Browder was an officer. In his declaration, Doyle said that the tape shows the emergency lights of Browder’s car are not on.

”He’s kind of ambling along the alley, and then these headlights are on him,” Miller said. “I’m not sure Fridoon knew he was a police officer.”

Browder had been dispatched to the scene after a 911 call reported a man with a knife was threatening people. Police investigators later said the knife was a shiny object.

After the shooting Chief Shelley Zimmerman announced a change in the body camera policy requiring officers to activate the devices before they arrive on calls, as opposed to once they arrive on scene.”