It likely will never be known exactly which blow to the head killed Martin Frederick Cotton II on Aug. 9, 2007, but a federal jury has now ruled that on the night the 26-year-old died, he was subjected to excessive force by officers with the Eureka Police Department.
As the Times-Standard reported Saturday, the jury found the City of Eureka liable for $4.5 million, with $4 million of that going to Cotton’s daughter and $500,000 to his father. The jury also awarded $75,000 in punitive damages from the individual officers who were involved in the altercation that preceded Cotton’s death.
Jurors unanimously found that two of the three officers, Adam Laird and Justin Winkle, used unreasonable/excessive force and ordered them each to pay $30,000 to the plaintiffs. The jury found that the third officer, Gary Whitmer, did not use excessive force, but they determined that all three men were “deliberately indifferent” to Cotton’s serious medical needs. Whitmer was ordered to pay $15,000 in damages to the plaintiffs.
City Manager David Tyson said Monday that he was disappointed with the jury’s decision. “We feel that the verdict that was handed down runs counter to any of the findings of the independent inquiries following the incident,” Tyson said.
If you need a refresher on the particulars of the case you can find previous Journal stories here, here and here. Briefly, Cotton was involved in a pair of violent altercations on the night of his death, the first with men in the outdoor day-use area of the Eureka Rescue Mission, the second with the three EPD officers who were called to the scene. A witness said he saw an officer strike Cotton in the back of the head, kicked in the ribs, kneed in the kidneys and and batoned on the legs. Cotton was eventually arrested and placed in the county jail. Two hours later, he was dead.
The autopsy — by former coroner and current Eureka Mayor Frank Jager — revealed that Cotton had died from a subdural hematoma due to blunt force trauma to the back of his head. It also revealed high levels of LSD in his system. Then-Eureka Police Chief Garr Nielsen theorized that the fatal wound may have been self-inflicted, as Cotton was seen banging his head against the jail cell floor that night. But officials have repeatedly refused to release a video that captured Cotton’s entire stay in the jail cell.
District Attorney Paul Gallegos, who concurred with the head-banging theory as the most likely cause of death, determined that there was not enough evidence to charge any of the officers criminally. In March, 2008, Cotton’s family filed a wrongful death and civil rights violation claim against the county, the City of Eureka, the EPD and the Humboldt County Sheriffs Office.
Earlier this month the County agencies reached a settlement out of court for an undisclosed amount.
Tyson said that the City’s $4.5 million bill will be covered by its insurer, Redwood Empire Municipal Insurance Fund (REMIF). The insurance company also has the option of appealing the jury’s findings. “That’s their decision,” Tyson said.
Mark Ferguson, the REMIF agent handling the case for the City, said Monday that a decision on whether or not to appeal had not been finalized. “Any time you have a big case like this there are a lot of people involved in decision making,” Ferguson said. Specifically he said that there are other insurance providers who REMIF subcontracted to cover the liability in the case.
The damages awarded against the three EPD officers will not be covered by the City’s insurer. Their actions fall under individual accountability, Ferguson said.
This article appears in Best of Humboldt 2011.
Eureka police officers should not simply pay retribution for committing police brutality which lead to death, this is called murder. Police should face the same fate as the rest of us. These men should not be aloud to keep their jobs, much less serve no sentence for their crimes.
Martin Cotton was attacked by EIGHT EPD officers. The three who were on trial were the ones who were there the longest beating on him, and hid the fatal injuries they inflicted by throwing him in the jail, not the hospital.
Civilian witnesses are not the only ones who say the cops peppersprayed, batoned, kicked, kneed, and kneed Martin almost entirely while Martin was prone on the cement- THE COPS ADMIT THAT!
And the film from the jail was shown in the trial. You guys are still buying into that “banged his own head to death” story? Disgusting. The man was in pain and dying. Winkle (who admitted over and over again that he was pushing Martin’s head onto the cement while the other cops were beating the life out of Martin) bashed his head in so bad onto the concrete, that there was bleeding on three parts of his brain.
If more people (and reporters) are so dumbfounded and unclear as to what happened, they might have wanted to go to Oakland, even for just one day, and listened to the officers and civilian witnesses testify. This whole “We don’t know how it happened” line is outrageous and was started by the cops.
And just to show how psychotic EPD culture is, it appears from the recent Slime-Slandard article that Murl Harpham was saying he hopes the lawsuit is not a deterrent to excessive force! … that these particular cops were promoted (soon after they beat a man to death), and that they were wronged with regards to Martin Cotton…. that the cops should not be worried about lawsuits….
Crooked, Violent, Insane, AND Stupid
Can you imagine being beat all over your body while prone on cement, multiple armed men ON TOP OF YOU? And peppersprayed multiple times? And dragged to a cop car, and thrown into a jail cell TO DIE? It is horrific what these cops did. It is so sad what Martin Cotton suffered.
Remember Humboldt’s torture history with pepper spray? Nancy Delaney, the same lawyer trying to cover up the truth in this murder of Martin Cotton, put her kids through college getting paid to defend THAT pepperspray torture.
That’s easy to say, Samaya, but cops deal with the worst people imaginable, every day. How often does your job force you to make snap decisions that could get you or someone else hurt? The next time cops show up to deal with a scary, violent felon, think about whether officers in this position should be threatened with lawsuits and even criminal charges should they make a mistake or lose their cool.
So is Verbena getting her cut of the proceeds?
Oh, that’s right. This hasn’t gotten paid out yet — and after the appeal, it never will be.
Welcome to corporate U$A, where third-party, non-people entities like insurance companies get their very own private chance to render your justice null and void after the verdict!
This is a test because I have been trying to post something here for 2 1/2 days!