Jury awards $11.8 million to Dodgers fan blinded by LAPD projectile

A federal jury has handed Los Angeles a costly rebuke over crowd-control tactics, awarding $11.8 million to Isaac Castellanos after finding two LAPD officers liable for negligence, excessive force and constitutional violations in a shooting that left him permanently blind in his right eye.

The verdict, delivered April 16 in federal court, centered on a moment of celebration turned violent after the Dodgers won the 2020 World Series. Castellanos, then 22 and a student at Cal State Long Beach, had driven from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles with friends when a police projectile, described in coverage as a less-lethal round or rubber bullet, struck him in the face and eye.

Jurors found LAPD Officers Cody MacArthur and Jesse Pineda responsible for the injury. Their unanimous decision came after a trial that began April 7 and lasted only days, with jurors deliberating for just a few hours before returning the award. Castellanos had asked for as much as $13 million in damages, making the final figure just short of what his lawyers sought.

The case is likely to reverberate far beyond one downtown celebration. It turns a permanent eye injury into a test of how courts measure the risks of so-called less-lethal weapons when police use them in dense crowds, especially during moments when streets fill with fans, bystanders and people caught between officers and the surge of a public gathering. The size of the award also puts a fresh spotlight on the financial exposure facing the Los Angeles Police Department and the City of Los Angeles when force used to control a crowd causes catastrophic harm.

Castellanos filed his civil-rights lawsuit in February 2022, nearly four years after the injury and more than two years before the trial ever reached a jury. That gap underscores how long accountability can take in cases involving police force, even when the harm is severe and permanent. For LAPD, the verdict adds pressure to review how officers are trained, supervised and held liable when a projectile meant to be “less-lethal” leaves a young man blind in one eye.