Former McAllen officers settle excessive force lawsuit brought by Alamo man

Aaron Soto is seen on a hospital bed following his May 13, 2016 arrest by two former McAllen police officers. (File photo)

A lawsuit against two former McAllen police officers has been settled and was by a federal judge closed on Monday, according to court records.

Alamo resident Aaron Soto filed a lawsuit against former McAllen officers Ulyssess Bautista and Luis Zuniga who threw Soto to the ground and kicked him in the face in 2016 after he spat at Zuniga.

The details of the settlement aren’t public.

Soto filed the lawsuit on May 16, 2018, a little over two years after the incident.

One of the officers was fired and convicted of official oppression and the other resigned.

On Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane closed the case after all the plaintiff’s stipulations of dismissal paperwork for Bautista and Zuniga were filed.

Around 1 a.m. on May 13, 2016, Soto was pulled over in downtown McAllen after making a wrong way turn on a one-way street.

Soto would be arrested for driving while intoxicated.

The dash cam video of Soto’s arrest shows Soto spitting at Zuniga while being placed into the back of the squad car.

It was then that Zuniga yanked Soto from the back seat and threw him to the ground as Bautista kicked him in the face.

According to the complaint, Zuniga “slammed” Soto “headfirst into the sidewalk which resulted in a fracture of his facial bone” and then “dropped his full body weight of his left knee onto” Soto’s “head and face.”

Soto alleged that this was excessive force and “was unwarranted under (the) circumstances and was objectively and subjectively unreasonable when comparing or balancing the amount of force used against the need for force.”

His attorneys also stated that he posed no “risk of harm” because he “made no aggressive action toward (them) and nothing he did could be interpreted as threatening.”

On April 21, 2021, U.S. District Judge Ricardo H. Hinojosa dismissed the city of McAllen from the lawsuit.

A hearing for the case was scheduled for Monday but was canceled due to the settlement.

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