Bond had been part of a large protest near City Hall in downtown L.A. on May 29, 2020, when he alleged he was shot in the groin at close range with a projectile. Bond claimed he followed commands by police to back up, even though he’d never heard officers declare the gathering unlawful — which the city said they’d done — and had given officers no cause to treat him as a threat.
In his lawsuit, Bond said he “never threatened anyone, made no aggressive movements toward anyone, made no furtive gestures, and no physical movements that would reasonably suggest to the [police] that [he] was attempting, willing, or intending to inflict harm to anyone.”
The city’s lawyers wrote that Bond was seen on video using a tennis racket and a salad bowl “to shield himself and others from less lethal projectiles being fired at him and the crowd,” but that there was no evidence that he had participated with others in throwing objects at officers or that he had wielded the racket as a weapon or threatened officers with it.
He lost part of one testicle.
