A Hollister family has filed a lawsuit against the city
– claiming a police officer caused distress and property damage
in March when he kicked in their home’s door, shouted obscenities
and threatened an 11-year-old girl at gunpoint.
Abram and Esther Lujan say the city and Hollister Police
Department are at fault for a lack of training to former officer
Brian Brisco, 19 at the time, and for employing a knowingly unfit
patrolman.
A Hollister family has filed a lawsuit against the city – claiming a police officer caused distress and property damage in March when he kicked in their home’s door, shouted obscenities and threatened an 11-year-old girl at gunpoint.
Abram and Esther Lujan say the city and Hollister Police Department are at fault for a lack of training to former officer Brian Brisco, 19 at the time, and for employing a knowingly unfit patrolman.
Brisco, after an internal affairs investigation following the incident, was dismissed from the department, according to a claim the Lujans filed against the city in September.
Brisco and Former Police Chief Bill Pierpoint are also named as defendants in the suit, which seeks payments for emotional and physical distress, along with attorney’s fees.
“I decided to (sue) because they should make up for what they did that night,” said Abram Lujan on Wednesday.
He directed all other questions to his attorney, David Heilman, who did not return calls Wednesday to his San Francisco office.
City Attorney Elaine Cass said the city is represented by an outside counsel for this type of lawsuit.
“So I really don’t have a response,” she said. The attorney representing the city, Salinas-based Vincent Hurley, could not be reached.
The suit includes nine complaints – civil rights violations, assault, battery, false imprisonment, negligence, negligent hiring, constitutional rights violations, intentional infliction of emotional distress and failure to perform a mandatory duty.
Six people were permanently living in the house at the time – including Abram and Esther Lujan, their daughter and her 11-year-old daughter, and another daughter and her husband.
The Lujans claim Brisco, while patrolling during the early morning hours, noticed a boy, a relative of the Lujans, in front of their home on Park Street. The officer, they allege, threatened to kill the boy, who then entered the house out of fright and closed the door.
The suit claims Brisco kicked it in, entered the home without consent or identifying himself and shouted obscenities while searching through rooms. The Lujans have claimed Brisco then confronted the 11-year-old girl in her room and pointed his gun at her face.
The police report contradicted the allegations. Brisco reportedly approached a Hispanic male suspected to be armed outside. The male, the report claims, ran inside and forcefully closed the door. And after searching the home, Brisco did not find the suspect, according to the report.
