LOS ANGELES — A federal jury has awarded $11.8 million to Isaac Castellanos, a man permanently blinded in one eye after Los Angeles police fired a projectile into a crowd during celebrations of the Dodgers’ 2020 World Series victory, delivering a major civil rights verdict in a case that challenged the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of crowd-control force.
The verdict came after a week-and-a-half trial that began April 7 and concluded April 16, with jurors finding in favor of Castellanos on all claims stemming from the October 2020 incident in downtown Los Angeles. According to attorney Pedram Esfandiary, who tried the case alongside partner Monique Alarcon, the unanimous decision reflected both the strength of the evidence and the lasting severity of his client’s injuries.
Esfandiary spoke with the Vanguard after the trial and described the result as a significant victory for his client.
The lawsuit centered on allegations that LAPD officers used excessive force when they fired so-called less-lethal munitions into a crowd gathered after the Dodgers won the championship. Castellanos had been celebrating with friends in downtown Los Angeles when the scene turned chaotic. According to the complaint, officers advanced and opened fire without warning.
In an earlier interview with the Vanguard before trial, Castellanos described the moment he was struck.
“And out of nowhere, a cop car came out down the street in the dark and just started chasing the group down,” Castellanos said. “There was no calls of disbursement then or prior. And they fired into the crowd and I was hit and it was excruciating pain.”
The projectile shattered his eye and permanently altered the course of his life. Castellanos was a student at California State University, Long Beach, and had been building momentum in competitive esports. Just weeks before the shooting, he had won first place in a tournament with a $40,000 prize. His attorneys argued the injury disrupted both his education and professional ambitions.
After the verdict, Esfandiary said jurors were persuaded that officers should never have fired under the circumstances.
“They were ultimately persuaded that those cops should not have fired into that crowd,” he said. “Given the distance between them and the crowd, which diminished the accuracy of the shot, it was beyond policy.”
He said the firing distance exceeded LAPD policy for the weapon involved.
“There’s a reason for that policy, [it] is to prevent innocent people from getting injured, like Isaac was,” he said.
Esfandiary added that jurors also focused on the absence of any warning before force was used.
“They also found that it was unacceptable for the cops to have fired without giving a warning or any kind of dispersal order to give people a chance to leave,” he said.
Before trial, Esfandiary had described the case in blunt terms.
“It’s a straightforward, simple case. It’s clean cut,” he said, arguing the facts did not involve officers responding to an imminent threat or split-second life-or-death decision.
He also said the case took years to reach a jury because of delays common in civil rights litigation.
“That is the reality of the court system that we have sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes cases take a long time to sneak their way through the court system.”
Esfandiary further accused the city of slowing the process.
“They have been putting up roadblocks and barriers,” he said.
The damages portion of the trial, he said after the verdict, turned on whether jurors fully understood the life-altering nature of Castellanos’ injuries.
“They were also persuaded by the extent of Isaac’s injuries, which are very serious lifelong blindness in his right eye that affects him both physically and emotionally,” Esfandiary said.
Castellanos had previously described those daily challenges in personal terms.
“So the doctors have told me, all the specialists have seen that I won’t be able to read a book basically,” he said. “If I close my good eye, I can’t see … it’s completely black in the middle of my vision.”
He said the damage affects even ordinary tasks many people take for granted.
“My depth of perception is just very off,” Castellanos said. “If someone tosses me a pencil or something, or I’m always dropping stuff, or I see two or three of everything sometimes.”
The attorney said similar cases involving eye injuries from police projectiles have historically produced smaller recoveries.
“It’s interesting because there’s been prior eye injury cases that have gone to trial or they’ve settled out of court,” he said. “Usually the verdicts in those cases have range from one or two million max. This is, from what I understand, the largest verdict for these kind of injuries that’s come out of a trial.”
Esfandiary said attorneys spoke with jurors after the verdict and received detailed feedback about both the evidence and the way it was presented.
“We asked them about what they were persuaded by, what we could have done better, and they were unanimous in how persuaded they were, not just by the evidence, but how it was presented,” he said.
He said jurors responded strongly to visual presentations, courtroom graphics and demonstratives used throughout the trial.
“They really liked the way in which, for example, when I cross-examine witnesses or I examine any witness, I always create demonstratives,” he said. They said, “That helped us remember things incredibly well.”
According to Esfandiary, the liability question was comparatively straightforward.
“I don’t think they had a hard time concluding that they shouldn’t have fired,” he said. “I honestly think this case came down to the damages. What is the extent of Isaac’s injury?”
For Castellanos, the verdict carried emotional significance beyond the monetary award.
“He is humbled. He is over the moon, grateful. He is just blown away,” Esfandiary said.
The attorney described an emotional courtroom scene as the clerk read the verdict form and jurors answered yes to each question.
“Isaac progressively just breaks down and one to two tears turned into sobs and then I’m crying and my partner Monique is crying,” he said. “We turn around and there’s jury members crying as the verdict is being read.”
Esfandiary said Castellanos later thanked the jurors personally, and they offered words of encouragement.
“They told him, ‘Listen, go and live your life. We see how this has affected you. It should not have happened. You’re a good guy and hopefully this will bring you a measure of peace, closure, and good prospects for the future,’” he said.
Asked whether the verdict could help Castellanos resume his educational goals, Esfandiary said, “I think this is going to open a lot of doors.”
But he cautioned that the legal process is not finished.
“I will say Isaac doesn’t have any money in his pocket yet,” Esfandiary said. “They’re going to appeal this verdict.”
Even so, he said the jury’s unanimous decision delivered something no appeal can erase.
“I think hearing a jury of eight people unanimously agree with him and hear his truth and have his peers, fellow citizens, agree with him, that itself was just a huge victory,” he said.
