An officer with Veterans Affairs Police Department used excessive force when he beat an unarmed arrestee with his baton, for 41 seconds, as the man was pinned down by another officer, federal prosecutors said.

In that span of time, Juan Anthony Carrillo delivered 45 blows to the man’s body with his department-issued, steel baton on the campus of the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center in January 2022, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

Carrillo began hitting the man, identified by prosecutors as “RV,” immediately after he arrived to help his fellow officer arrest him, court documents say.

Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that “(Carrillo’s) strikes were relentless, averaging more than one strike per second.”

The beating caused multiple injuries, including cuts on the man’s legs and a broken bone in his foot, according to prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Wesley L. Hsu sentenced Carrillo to one year in prison on Nov. 15 on one count of deprivation of rights under color of law, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

Carrillo, 46, of Alhambra in Los Angeles County pleaded guilty to the charge on July 26, according to prosecutors.

His defense attorney, James R. Tedford II, didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Nov. 18.

What led up to the incident

Carrillo responded to another officer’s call for back up at the VA hospital on Jan. 16, 2022, according to prosecutors.

Before the call, the other officer found the man holding a glass pipe outside the VA hospital and tried to arrest him for suspected drug paraphernalia, prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memorandum.

The man “began to defensively resist,” then the officer “physically took (him) to the ground,” according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors noted that “defensive physical resistance,” which may involve an arrestee pushing or pulling an officer, is not the same as “active physical aggression,” when an arrestee might try to hit an officer.

When Carrillo arrived, the other officer was on top of the man, who was “cowering on the ground with his body curled,” the sentencing memorandum says.

Carrillo raced out of his patrol car and started attacking the man with his baton, according to prosecutors.

Other officers arrived by the time Carrillo had hit him 39 times, the sentencing memorandum says.

“This might be a far different case if (Carrillo) had ceased his strikes after the first ten, first fifteen, possibly even first twenty strikes,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.

“But to continue beating another human being (who was curled on the floor pinned under the weight of another 250-pound officer, no less) — even as R.V. screamed in pain, even as backup officers arrived, and even as R.V. laid perfectly still — is chilling behavior.”

The officer who pinned the man down weighed 85 pounds more than him while Carrillo weighed about 60 pounds more, according to prosecutors.

‘Lifetime of collateral consequences’

In a court filing, Tedford had asked the court to sentence Carrillo, a decorated Marine Corps veteran, to time served and a year of supervised release.

Carrillo was a military police officer for three years and served as a presidential support specialist for three years, according to Tedford, who said he had accompanied former President Bill Clinton to Israel for peace negotiations.

Tedford wrote that “there is a lifetime of collateral consequences” Carillo must face, including losing his job as a law enforcement officer and not being able to work in law enforcement in the future, which Tedford said was a “huge punishment.”

Carrillo had tried to “gain compliance from (the man),” but “unfortunately” acted “recklessly and failed to follow VAPD policy for use of the baton by not reassessing the effectiveness of his strikes after each blow,” Tedford wrote in the filing.

According to prosecutors, after the beating, Carrillo’s expandable baton could no longer collapse despite his attempts to retract it.

“Officers owe a special duty and have a special obligation to keep the trust of the citizens they police,” Hsu said at Carrillo’s sentencing hearing.

Hsu handed Carrillo the maximum sentence possible for deprivation of rights under color of law, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

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Crime and courts