A federal jury awarded an Aurora man more than $1 million last week finding an Aurora police officer used excessive force against him during a 2020 traffic stop.
When George Gutierrez was pulled over on April 26, 2020, he requested a supervisor to come to the scene when asked to exit his car by police, according to his legal team. Gutierrez’s attorneys say officers refused his requests, broke his window, pulled him out of the car and slammed his head into a nearby van although he had put his hands up. He claimed he experienced physical and emotional injuries, including a concussion, according to court records.
The legal battle began about four years ago, with Gutierrez filing a federal lawsuit against the city of Aurora and the two officers present at the traffic stop, Cory McCue and Matthew Thomas Meyers, according to the court records.
Only McCue was found by the jury to have used excessive force in the incident, according to Amanda Yarusso, one of Gutierrez’s attorneys.
The jury trial began on April 21, according to the court docket, and the jury ultimately delivered a verdict in Gutierrez’s favor two days later.
Gutierrez will receive $50,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages, according to court records. Compensatory damages are meant to reimburse a plaintiff for the damage they’ve suffered, whereas punitive damages are essentially a way to punish misconduct on the part of the defendant.
Gutierrez told The Beacon-News that the decision was “a long time coming.”
“It’s hard to get heard, and, you know, anybody to listen,” he said on Friday.
Yarusso said it was meaningful that the jury sided with Gutierrez even though, per the court records, the defendants were permitted to note that he had a prior conviction. Gutierrez was found guilty in 1994 of a gang-related shooting death, although he was not the gunman himself, according to past reporting.
In the 2020 traffic stop, Gutierrez had been pulled over for failing to signal within 100 feet, Kane County court records show. He was ultimately convicted in Kane County court for that offense and for having tinted windows and obstructing a police officer, according to court records.
In the federal case, Yarusso said, Gutierrez and his attorneys were unable to contest the legality of the traffic stop, but the jury still favored Gutierrez’s case.
“That’s a real recognition of, you might do something that’s barely legal, that’s technically legal, as a police officer and it’s still not right,” Yarusso said. “That’s what this is about, is using these very minor, technical traffic violations to stop people.”
McCue is still employed by the department, a spokesperson for the Aurora police confirmed Friday.
He and Meyers were honored in 2021 by the Exchange Club of Aurora as 2020 Aurora Police Officers of the Year for protecting a young mother and her children from a man with a knife, according to past reporting.
The Aurora Police Department said they are working with legal counsel to pursue next steps, and a spokesperson said that the city is “actively evaluating all post-trial and appellate options to determine the best course of action to successfully challenge the outcome.”
“While we respect the judicial process and the important role of juries, we believe this verdict is contrary to well-established law and remain confident it will be overturned through the appeals process,” the Aurora Police Department said in a statement.
Now, five years later, Gutierrez, 52, plans to continue working in the community and advocating for police reform and other causes. He said he runs a business called Chicano Times, helps out at community events and local food pantries and is involved with advocating for children, immigrants and other groups. He said when he went to court for the traffic violation, community organizers and families from the boxing club he volunteered at showed up to support him.
“A lot of what I do today … is because of my past, because of what I went through when I was younger,” Gutierrez said. “I wanted to come out here once I was released (from being incarcerated) to help the community, so that they, you know, as much as I could help it, that they don’t go through the same things I did.”
He said he’s also been outspoken about pushing for change within the Aurora Police Department.
“It happened to happen to someone that is advocating for change within the community,” Gutierrez said.
And, having previously advocated for a public forum with the police department, he hopes the jury’s decision could spur on action from the city.
“I think that with this verdict and the amount that was awarded,” Gutierrez said, “we can kind of try to get this public forum going … the fact that they, the jury, felt this was serious enough to award that amount, that it was not a minor issue.”
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com