The City of Sacramento will pay $2.2 million in a civil settlement to a man suffering a traumatic brain injury after police fired a less lethal round at his head during the George Floyd protests.  

That man was acting as a legal observer with the National Lawyers Guild at the time of the shooting. He says justice still has not been served.

Video shows the tense standoff between police and protesters in Midtown Sacramento when officers respond to an object thrown at them by shooting less lethal rounds.

Legal observer Danny Garza was hit in the face and fell to the ground. Garza was wearing a bright green National Lawyers Guild legal observer’s hat when he was hit by the bean bag round.

“It felt like getting hit in the head with a hammer,” Garza said.

The impact left Garza, a law school grad, with a traumatic brain injury, robbing him of the life he was living.

Now, five years after filing a lawsuit, the City of Sacramento has reached a settlement over the shooting.

“I would trade my brain and my life back any day for that money,” Garza said.

Garza names the city, former police chief Daniel Hahn and officer Michael Mantsch for the shooting.

Officer Mantsch filed a report in response to the incident, reading “to my knowledge nobody was seriously injured or needed medical attention from the bean bag rounds I fired.”

“No one is being held accountable, no one is asking why this happened, why they did it and taking corrective actions to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Garza said. 

“The City has no further comment following the settlement,” a city spokesperson said. 

Garza served six years in the Navy and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. That he says set him on a course for a career in law and his work as a legal observer.

“We’re there to promote law and order, but the idea is we’re all responsible for the law, including the police,” Garza said.

Now this legal observer is in search of justice after a $2 million settlement he calls compensation, not accountability.

“I want my old life, I worked really hard for it,” he said. “and I liked the person I was and the life I was building through all my hard work and they took it away from me.”

Garza said he has asked the district attorney to file a criminal charge for excessive force against the officer who shot him. The DA declined. 

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