Man sues SDPD officers who smashed his car window

After serving eight years in prison for crimes that the California Supreme Court later ruled there was no evidence he committed, Nick Hoskins knew his constitutional rights all too well, particularly his right to protection against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment.

When San Diego police officers pulled Hoskins over for an alleged minor traffic violation in May, he set up his phone to record the interaction. The footage shows Hoskins, 31, answering an officer’s questions but then calmly and firmly denying the officer’s repeated demands to get out of his car so police could search it.

“What is the probable cause for the search?” Hoskins repeatedly asked the officer. Without answering those questions, an officer smashed Hoskins’ passenger window, the video shows.

On Wednesday, Hoskins filed a federal lawsuit in San Diego against the city and the four officers involved in the traffic stop. The lawsuit alleges negligence by the city and the officers and claims that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights and the Bane Act, a state law that prohibits people, including law enforcement officers, from interfering with another person’s constitutional rights through force or the threat of force.

A police spokesman said the department could not comment on the ongoing litigation.

“I just want them to be held accountable, just like I would be held accountable if they found something (illegal) in my car,” Hoskins said in an interview with the Union-Tribune on Thursday.

Hoskins was arrested in 2014 on suspicion of being a member of a street gang that was involved in a bloody rivalry with other gangs. Despite prosecutors never presenting evidence that Hoskins himself had committed violence, a jury convicted him of conspiracy to commit murder on behalf of a criminal street gang and conspiracy to participate in a criminal street gang. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.

Hoskins challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and his convictions were overturned by a state appeals court and the state Supreme Court.

Michelle Angeles, a civil rights attorney with the McKenzie Scott law firm that is representing Hoskins in his lawsuit, said her office does not yet know what information officers had when they stopped Hoskins. From her nine years of experience with Federal Defenders of San Diego, Angeles said officers often rely on inaccurate, incomplete or unreliable information during traffic stops.

While Hoskins’ lawsuit lists all four police stops since his release from prison, the specific allegations relate to the May 9 stop in Southcrest. According to his lawsuit and an interview, Hoskins had just left a community barbecue in Southcrest Park and was on his way to pick up his 12-year-old son from the school bus stop when officers pulled him over at the 43rd Street entrance to Interstate 805 north, allegedly for failing to come to a full stop at a stop sign.

As he had done during previous traffic stops since his release from prison, Hoskins set up his phone to record the interaction. “I don’t trust the police,” he said, citing the evidentiary issues with his overturned conviction. “So I’m recording it and getting my own evidence.”

The complaint alleges that during previous stops, officers attempted to search him and his vehicle, but he refused. Without probable cause, officers sent him packing.

But on May 9, the officer continued to tell Hoskins to get out of the vehicle. The complaint does not name any of the four officers, and states that their identities are unknown at this time.

The cellphone footage shows Hoskins answering questions, through a window he had rolled down slightly, about his name, address, phone number and where he was leaving and going. The officer then asked him to step out of the vehicle so police could “make sure there were no weapons.”

At that point, Hoskins told the officer that he would not get out of the car and began to question the probable cause for such a search. During the interaction, the officer repeatedly told him, “I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen.” At one point, the officer told Hoskins, “You’re an adult, I want you to go along with the program here.”

The video shows that after Hoskins continued to ask what the probable cause was for the officers to search the vehicle, an officer smashed his passenger window at least 10 times while Hoskins was pelted with broken glass. At that point, he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car.

“Nothing occurred to indicate that Mr. Hoskins was armed and dangerous at the time,” the complaint alleges. “Nothing occurred to indicate that evidence of a crime would be found in the car. None of the events gave rise to reasonable suspicion, much less probable cause, to search Mr. Hoskins’ vehicle or his person.”

After getting out of his car, Hoskins was frisked and handcuffed, then put in the back of a police cruiser for hours while officers searched his car, his complaint said. He was later taken to San Diego Central Jail and then released with a summons to appear in court for a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest.

Angeles said Thursday that prosecutors have not yet charged Hoskins.

According to Angeles, the San Diego Police Department launched an internal investigation, but Hoskins never heard back about the results of that investigation.

The lawsuit seeks general, compensatory, punitive and exemplary damages in an unspecified amount, as well as civil penalties.