[UPDATE: Moxley Skeptical of Case] Did Officer Manuel Ramos Warm Up on a Disabled Man Before The Kelly Thomas Killing?


UPDATE, 2:37 P.M.: I can't vouch for this lawsuit. For 19 hours, Russell R. Arens–the 1988 University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law
graduate who is the plaintiff's lawyer–knowingly ignored five
calls to answer simple questions. That conduct makes me leery of
the merits of the suit. After additional investigation, my prediction: The Fullerton police and Ramos will win this case. If my educated hunch is right and this is a cheap attempt to capitalize on the death of Kelly Thomas, I despise it.

ORIGINAL POST, 8 A.M.: About two weeks before he turned his fatal charms on an unarmed, homeless, schizophrenic man at the Fullerton Transportation Center in July 2011, did police officer Manual Anthony Ramos unnecessarily attack a disabled man in a grocery store parking lot?

That's the story told in a lawsuit filed this month in Orange County Superior Court against the Fullerton Police Department (FPD) and Ramos, who is on the verge of formally being fired and faces a second degree murder charge for the July 5, 2011, fatal cop beating of Kelly Thomas.

]

Mark Edwin Walker, who is disabled, said that he stopped at
an Albertsons in Fullerton on the evening of June 21 to fill a pharmacy
prescription. When he left the store, Ramos approached and
searched him without stating a reason, according to the lawsuit.

“Why are you hassling me?” Walker says he asked Ramos.

According
to the lawsuit, the cop said nothing in response but picked up the
58-year-old Chino Hills man, slammed him to the ground and stomped
on his hand.

The alleged police brutality knocked off Walker's wedding ring and fractured a bone in his hand.

Ramos apparently wasn't sympathetic.

When Walker complained about the excessive force, the cop replied, “Fucking shut up,” according to the lawsuit.

Walker
claims Ramos falsely arrested him for being intoxicated in public,
threw him in jail with wounds and, hours later, made him walk nearly
four miles back to his vehicle parked at the grocery store.

Sound like the thug involved in savagely killing Thomas?

A judge eventually dismissed the charge against Walker at the request of the Orange County District Attorney's office because Ramos was himself a criminal suspect.

Arens,
Walker's Seal Beach-based lawyer, said in the 20-page complaint for
damages that Ramos “had no reasonable suspicion or probable cause to
approach and detain [Walker] and did so for the sole purpose of
harassing a 58-year-old disabled man Ramos deemed unworthy.”

Lawyers for the FPD and Ramos have not yet filed a formal response to the allegations, but their defense is sure to mention that Walker got nailed for a 2005 DUI.

The case has been assigned to Superior Court Judge Jamoa A. Moberly.

Ramos and officer Jay Cicinelli, who also faces criminal charges in the Thomas killing, lost an attempt to derail the Orange County District Attorney's office case against them at an April preliminary hearing.

Both cops say they are innocent because Thomas didn't obey instructions and caused them to reluctantly use force.

Go HERE to read my last Moxley Confidential column on the case.

(rscottmoxley at ocweekly dot com)

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