By Doug Irving
Orange County Register
SANTA ANA, Calif. — A man who says his scalp was torn from his head in a car crash with an undercover Santa Ana police officer will receive more than $100,000 from the city to settle a threatened lawsuit.
The officer supposedly ran a red light as he followed a suspect in an unmarked car, with neither lights nor sirens. Peter Singh Sandhu of Irvine was driving home from work and slammed into the officer’s car.
“I was going through a green light,” Sandhu said. “And the next thing I knew, I woke up in a paramedic’s van.”
Santa Ana’s City Council voted this week to pay Sandhu $112,500 to cover his medical bills and to compensate him for his pain and suffering. That’s the most the city has paid in nearly two years to settle a liability claim, sometimes the precursor to a full-fledged lawsuit, records show.
The collision in late March gave Sandhu a concussion, hurt his elbow, ribs and chest, and left him with “face and scalp lacerations,” according to his claim. What that means: “I was scalped,” he said. “It was like something from the Old West.”
Sandhu, 52, a computer programmer, was driving his 2003 Mustang east on Main Street in Irvine. At the same time, the Santa Ana police officer was driving an unmarked Toyota Forerunner south on Paseo Westpark.
The officer, a detective with more than 30 years on the Santa Ana force, was conducting “rolling surveillance” in Irvine, following a suspect in his car, Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said. Bertagna said he could not discuss the details of the case the officer was investigating because it was still open.
At least one witness told police that the officer initially stopped at the red light at Main and Paseo Westpark, Irvine Police Lt. John Hare said.
“And then, evidently, (he) proceeded through the intersection,” Hare said.
Sandhu’s car crashed into the side of the officer’s Toyota van. Sandhu spent the next three days in the hospital, where doctors reattached his scalp with surgical staples.
Bertagna said he didn’t know whether the officer was disciplined in connection with the crash.
“Unfortunately, it was his fault,” Bertagna said. “The city had to make it right.”
Santa Ana has not paid a six-figure sum to settle a liability claim since January 2008, records show. In that case, the City Council authorized a payout of just under $110,000 to a woman who was rear-ended by a Public Works truck.
People with a complaint against the city for some injury or damage generally file a liability claim before they can file a lawsuit. The city was served with 168 such claims in 2008, the most recent year for which full statistics are available.
Most were for minor damages, such as a tire dinged by a pothole or a pipe burst by a city tree. The city has so far paid to settle 67 of those claims. Only about a dozen of those payouts exceeded $5,000.
Copyright 2010 Orange County Register