A federal jury in Central Islip on Thursday awarded $35 million to the family of Kenny Lazo, of Bay Shore, who died in 2008 in police custody.
The family of Lazzo, whose death had been ruled in an official autopsy as a cardiac arrest, had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Suffolk County and its police department. Suffolk’s medical examiner’s report, according to Newsday, said that the cardiac arrest followed “exertion associated with physical altercation with multiple blunt impacts.”
“After 15 years of waiting, justice has been served,” Frederick Brewington, the attorney for Lazo’s family, said in a news release.
Suffolk County said it would appeal the verdict, according to Newsday.
Lazo was wrongfully pulled over by Suffolk police on the entrance ramp from the Robert Moses Causeway to the Southern State Parkway, the news release said. After Lazo was asked to step out of the car, police strip-searched him and “beat him repeatedly with more than 36 blunt force trauma strikes to his head with Mag flashlights.”
But Marc Lindemann, who represented the county and its police department and officers named in the suit, said during the trial that officers had to use force because they thought their lives were at risk in “an emergency situation,” believing Lazzo had just completed a drug deal, Newsday reported.
Lazo was not taken to the hospital, Brewington’s office said, but was brought to Third Precinct headquarters, where he did not receive medical treatment. He was brought to Southside Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“It was absolutely appalling how the Suffolk County police physically abused and humiliated Mr. Lazo, then tried to cover it up,” Brewington said. “No family should have to go through what Mr. Lazo’s family had to.”
The trial was completed in three weeks after the jury ruled in the family’s favor.
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