OAKLAND, Calif. — The city has agreed to pay $175,000 to a TV news cameraman who had a run-in with police at Highland Hospital on the day four police officers were killed in 2009.
The incident occurred when Douglas Laughlin, then a KGO-TV cameraman, was standing on the sidewalk outside Highland Hospital as an ambulance arrived on March 21, 2009, the day police responded to gunfire that killed Officer John Hege and Sgts. Mark Dunakin, Erv Romans and Daniel Sakai. The ambulance carried one of the officers.
Video captured by Laughlin's camera appeared to show Laughlin hurrying toward the hospital emergency entrance when three officers stopped him, saying, "Get the (expletive) out of here" and rushing him away.
Laughlin's attorneys said in their initial claim that the cameraman suffered injuries when officers pushed him down, and that the officers also broke his camera.
In the settlement, Laughlin conceded that he had not suffered any injuries, according to the Oakland City Attorney's Office.
But Laughlin held to his accusation that the officers had infringed his First Amendment right to film from the sidewalk and said he had been "traumatized by the profanity and manhandling," according to the City Attorney's Office. He asked to be paid lost wages, as he "had taken early retirement due to this incident."
Laughlin had filed a complaint with the police department's Internal Affairs Division, but filed a claim with the city after the division upheld the officers' actions, according to Laughlin's attorney.