A Los Angeles filmmaker and his daughter were awarded more than $3 million after a jury found Los Angeles County negligent for injuries the man sustained when a sheriff\u2019s deputy shot him in the face with a non-lethal projectile during a protest against police brutality in 2020.<\/p>\n
Cellin Gluck, 67, alleged in a lawsuit filed the following summer that the county and a number of unnamed sheriff\u2019s deputies committed negligence and battery, violated Gluck\u2019s civil rights and falsely imprisoned both him and his daughter Caroline, 28.<\/p>\n
A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury determined earlier this month that the deputy \u2014 whose identity was never determined \u2014 used unreasonable force to control the crowd of protesters when firing the projectile and harmed the elder Gluck. It also found that witnessing the incident caused Caroline to \u201csuffer serious emotional distress,\u201d according to the complaint. <\/p>\n
The director, producer and actor \u2014 who has worked for decades on films including \u201cTransformers\u201d and \u201cRemember the Titans\u201d \u2014 said he did nothing wrong during a protest in L.A.\u2019s Fairfax District on May 30, 2020, less than a week after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A policeman reacts to a can of soda thrown by a protester on Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles on in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis. <\/p>\n
(Luis Sinco\/Luis Sinco)<\/p>\n
Gluck alleged he was unarmed, facing away from the deputies during a peaceful protest and was \u201cnot posing a reasonable threat to anyone\u2019s safety when deputies decided to fire their weapons in his direction,\u201d according to the complaint. <\/p>\n
The Glucks were trying to help another protester who had been shot in the face with a bean bag, when the deputy shot Gluck with the projectile and \u201cblood beg[an] rushing down his cheek,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n
The \u201cimpact fractured his face, embedded shrapnel in his nasal cavity … left him with permanent disfigurement, vision problems, and severe emotional trauma,\u201d according to a statement by the Glucks\u2019 attorneys.<\/p>\n
The jury announced it was awarding Gluck $3.5 million and Caroline $300,000 at the conclusion of an approximately five-hour hearing in Los Angeles on Aug. 20.<\/p>\n
Gluck praised the verdict during an interview with The Times.<\/p>\n
\u201cJustice was found because they are going to be held accountable,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnything can be lethal, but it\u2019s \u2026 the person with the finger on the trigger who\u2019s ultimately got to be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the jury determined that both he and the crowd were also negligent in the incident, according to court records; Gluck was 20% responsible for the harm done to him, and the crowd was 15% responsible. As a result, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Shultz\u2019s \u201ccourt will reduce the amount of the jury\u2019s award by 35%: to $2.275 million for Cellin Gluck and $195,000 for Caroline Gluck,\u201d the Los Angeles Office of County Counsel said in a written statement.<\/p>\n
However, Glucks\u2019 attorneys said in an interview that it is not entirely clear whether that will happen. The office of county counsel said in an email that it \u201dis exploring all of its options in this case, including the possibility of an appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cellin Gluck stands for a portrait at his home on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2025 in Santa Monica.<\/p>\n
(Juliana Yamada\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough a different administration is in place now than in 2020, we recognize the importance of thoroughly reviewing and evaluating what occurred at that time to identify lessons that can help us improve our service to the community,\u201d the Sheriff\u2019s Department said in an emailed statement. <\/p>\n
Carl Douglas, an attorney for the Glucks, said the fact that a jury awarded more than $3 million to yet another victim of unreasonable force \u201cshould outrage county taxpayers,\u201d who have paid many millions of dollars to protesters and others harmed by sheriff\u2019s deputies in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the case showed is that training is only as good as the officers who follow the training. In this case we believe the officers failed to follow their training,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cThe only way to stop these kinds of payouts is if deputies are held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Los Angeles filmmaker and his daughter were awarded more than $3 million after a jury found Los…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":179515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[12854,1582,276,101499,28126,3059,101498,17827,101500,13155,2961,224,2444,5337,101501,1809,4532,12498,11004,10576],"class_list":{"0":"post-179514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-attorney","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-cellin-gluck","12":"tag-complaint","13":"tag-county","14":"tag-deputy-projectile","15":"tag-face","16":"tag-glucks","17":"tag-jury","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-times","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-non-lethal-projectile","23":"tag-protest","24":"tag-protester","25":"tag-sheriff","26":"tag-statement","27":"tag-training"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115100339679128211","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}