A federal judge has ruled that most of a civil rights lawsuit against the City of San Diego and its police department can move forward, finding that two plaintiffs plausibly alleged bike-team officers used excessive force during a downtown arrest and that police leadership may have known about a broader pattern of similar incidents.
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel dismissed claims against 33 unnamed Doe defendants, but only without prejudice, allowing the bulk of the lawsuit filed by George Medina and Araceli Urbina Viveros to proceed, according to Courthouse News Service. Medina and Urbina Viveros accuse the San Diego Police Department, its chief and individual officers of unlawful detention, excessive force, arrest without probable cause and First Amendment retaliation. Medina alleges that three officers tackled him without warning or verbal commands while he was walking in the Gaslamp Quarter, and that bike-team officers beat and pepper-sprayed him even though he was compliant and did not resist, per the outlet's reporting on the case.
Urbina Viveros alleges that an officer shoved her to the ground when she tried to record the encounter, then shoved her again when she tried to stand, the same reporting states. The city has argued that the officers' conduct was justified, saying Medina resisted arrest and that Urbina Viveros tried to enter a police cordon to film, and that an unknown woman claimed Medina had assaulted her. Police said they found a small digital scale and Adderall on Medina, and he was charged with possession of a controlled substance and resisting a police officer — charges that were later dropped, Courthouse News reports.
Judge Finds Pattern Allegations Sufficient to Revive Claims
Curiel had previously dismissed claims against the city over unlawful seizures and First Amendment violations, but the plaintiffs added reports of similar excessive-force incidents involving the department's bike team in an amended complaint. The judge found those allegations sufficient to bring the previously dismissed claims back into the case, per the same account. He also found that the city's arguments for dismissal fell short, rejecting the police department's position, raised in its motion to dismiss, that the plaintiffs failed to connect the department to individual officers' actions.
Curiel went further, writing that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged Police Chief Scott Wahl was reckless or callously indifferent to their constitutional rights. He denied motions to dismiss claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and violations of California's Bane Act, ruling that those issues can be decided at discovery, the outlet reported. The city did not respond to a request for comment by press time, according to Courthouse News.
Sophia Rebecca-Marie, an attorney with the Pride Law Firm representing the plaintiffs, said the firm was proud of the ruling in a statement to Courthouse News. She said the decision recognized that the city and its leadership, including the chief of police, knew, or at the very least should have known, about an alleged pattern of bike-team misconduct. Rebecca-Marie called the ruling a step toward justice and accountability for what she described as the bike team's ongoing pattern of violence.
A Broader Pattern of Pepper-Spray Complaints Downtown
The ruling lands amid what Courthouse News describes as increasing scrutiny of the San Diego Police Department's use of pepper spray, especially in the Gaslamp Quarter. Gaslamp officers deployed pepper spray 361 times in 2025, more than twice the 2024 total and three times the 2023 figure, according to police use-of-force data reported by the Times of San Diego. The same data showed 196 reported assaults on officers in the Gaslamp in 2025, more than double the prior year's count. Under SDPD policy, chemical agents are supposed to be used only against people engaged in active resistance, assaultive behavior or life-threatening behavior, and crowd-dispersal use requires supervisor authorization, the Times of San Diego reported.
Other recent cases have drawn similar scrutiny. Bryanna Andrade alleged Gaslamp bike patrol officers pepper-sprayed her in an October 2025 incident and filed her own lawsuit in March 2026, according to the Times of San Diego. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that an internal affairs investigation was opened after officers used Tasers and pepper spray during a Gaslamp Quarter melee in May 2026. A 2024 Union-Tribune report described video showing a bike-team officer deliver a knee strike to a man on the ground before using pepper spray on bystanders who were watching and filming.
Fights, Complaints and a Prior Settlement
Not every Gaslamp pepper-spray incident has ended in litigation. NBC 7 San Diego reported that five people were arrested after multiple fights broke out near Fifth Avenue and F Street, with bike-team officers deploying pepper spray to control the crowd — the second time in months that multiple fights had broken out at that location after bars closed, according to the outlet. The department said it had received a complaint about the incident and would be looking into it.
The city has paid out over use-of-force allegations before: NBC 7 San Diego has reported that San Diego paid $100,000 to settle an excessive-force claim brought by Melvin Brown II against the police department. The Medina and Urbina Viveros case now moves toward discovery, where the intentional infliction of emotional distress and Bane Act claims Curiel declined to dismiss will be litigated alongside the broader civil rights allegations against the department and Chief Wahl.
