After nearly a decade of litigation, Long Beach will pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit alleging a police officer negligently caused the death of a man who ended up pinned between a Metro train and station platform as the officer tried to detain him.
Police stopped Cesar Rodriguez at the Wardlow Road A Line station in August 2017 after discovering the 23-year-old hadn’t paid his fare. During the stop, Rodriguez and LBPD Officer Martin Ron ended up struggling on the ground as the train approached and then hit Rodriguez.
Rodriguez’s mother, Rosa Moreno, soon sued, kicking off a rollercoaster legal saga. During a 2023 trial, a jury awarded her $12.2 million, but that was reversed last year. A three-justice panel ruled that the trial judge tainted the verdict by not telling the jury how to assess Rodriguez’s comparative negligence for his own death, for allegedly trying to flee from Officer Ron.
During the fare evasion stop, the city alleged, Rodriguez gave police a false identification card, prompting Ron to search him. What happened next was highly contested by both sides at trial.
Ron testified that he was searching Rodriguez using a technique called the standing modified search. That meant Rodriguez was standing with his hands behind his head and his legs spread, while Ron grasped Rodriguez’s hands and checked his pockets.
After Ron found a bag of what he suspected was meth, he said, Rodriguez tried to pull away from him toward the train tracks in an apparent attempt to escape arrest.
That allegedly sent both men tumbling to the ground, where Rodriguez landed with his legs dangling in the way of the oncoming train.
According to court records, Ron said that he tried to pull Rodriguez out of the way of the train but was too late. On impact, Rodriguez’s body twisted up to six times. He died of internal injuries at a hospital a few hours later.
Attorneys for Rodriguez’s mother argued at trial that Ron was negligent in searching Rodriguez at that spot instead of moving somewhere safer. Rough estimates placed Rodriguez 3 feet and 6 inches from the edge of the train platform, his feet just outside the painted yellow line warning passengers not to get too close to trains pulling into a station.
Rodriguez’s death sparked protests, but the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office cleared police of any criminal wrongdoing.
With the settlement — approved by the Long Beach City Council on Tuesday — a jury won’t get another chance to determine whether Ron’s actions directly caused Rodriguez’s death.
As part of the legal agreement, the case will be dismissed without the city admitting any liability, Deputy City Attorney Howard Russell wrote in an email.
He added that the settlement amount was reached through a mediator after “extensive negotiations.”