Salt Lake City has agreed to pay nearly $300,000 to settle a civil-rights lawsuit arising from an unsuccessful 1997 drug raid at a west-side tortilla factory and restaurant.
Eighteen of the 26 individuals who originally filed the suit in March 1999 will each receive $15,000, with about $5,000 of that going toward attorneys' fees and costs, said Michael Martinez, the plaintiffs' attorney.
The other eight original plaintiffs were previously dismissed from the case for various reasons, a decision that Martinez intends to appeal. If that challenge is successful, Martinez expects those individuals to also receive $15,000 apiece.
The April 25, 1997, raid at Panaderia La Diana was, at the time, the largest coordinated federal, state and local anti-narcotics raid ever in Utah. Reportedly acting on a tip that the business was a front for a major drug-dealing enterprise, armed police officers kicked in the unlocked doors of the business and held employees and customers at gunpoint for several hours.
A search of the premises netted only antibiotics and 24 tablets of Darvon, a painkiller.
The plaintiffs alleged the raid was racially motivated, since all of the people present at Panaderia La Diana at the time were Hispanics. It happened during a time that Salt Lake City was seeing a large influx of Hispanics, Martinez said, and city leaders and police had a general distrust of the immigrants.
The Salt Lake City Attorney's Office referred questions about the settlement to a spokesman for the Salt Lake City Police Department, who did not return a call for comment Tuesday. The police department did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.
The lawsuit has been pared down significantly since it was first filed. Many of the defendants have been dismissed, as well as a number of claims, including one of racial discrimination.
Martinez said the 18 plaintiffs — which include business owner Rafael Gomez, his family and Panaderia La Diana employees and customers — all voted to accept the settlement and are ready to move on.
"They just want to let it go and go on knowing that that event is now probably not possible to happen again."
E-mail: awelling@desnews.com