San Diego jury awards $85M in death of man following arrest

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A jury has awarded $85 million in the death of a man who was restrained by San Diego County sheriff’s deputies in 2015. The federal jury on Tuesday found for the family in a wrongful death lawsuit against the county for the death of 32-year-old Lucky Phounsy. The lawsuit says Phounsy had called 911 while suffering paranoid delusions but deputies escalated the situation, eventually leading to a struggle where Phounsy was shocked, hit and hog-tied. His heart stopped in an ambulance and he died at a hospital. One of the deputies involved, Richard Fischer, later spent five months in jail for assaulting 16 women while on duty.