by Robb Fulcher

The city has agreed to pay $175,000 to a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant who claimed he was battered and falsely arrested after he called Hermosa police “the Gestapo” outside a private party in 2003. The sergeant, Mark Pompano, then 39, was off duty at the time.

According to a lawsuit filed by Pompano, Hermosa police helped a busy Manhattan Beach Police Department by responding to a loud party complaint on Eighth Street in the neighboring town.

Pompano was leaning against a police car, watching from across the street, and said to a friend, “Look at the Gestapo over there,” referring to Hermosa officers, according to the lawsuit. Gestapo were German security police organized under the Nazi regime.

The police officers ran across the street and told the two men to stop, then one of the officers “applied a violent ‘shoulder smash’” to Pompano, who was placed in handcuffs, the lawsuit contended.

Pompano was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication, taken to the Hermosa police station, given a test to show whether his eyes responded normally to motion, then told to leave, the lawsuit contended.

In the settlement, the city also agreed to pay for mediation that was held before an Orange County Superior Court judge, and to pay Pompano’s travel expenses from Connecticut. ER