Luis Carrillo
Civil Rights · Police Misconduct · Child Sexual Abuse · Wrongful Death
I humbly accept this proclamation, and I say humbly, because we got a lot of work to do in the future.
The Student Who Walked Out
In March 1968, thousands of Mexican American students walked out of East Los Angeles high schools in one of the largest student protests in American history — objecting to run-down campuses, overcrowded classrooms, a curriculum that erased their history, and counselors who steered them toward vocational tracks and away from college. The walkouts became a catalyst of the Chicano civil rights movement. Luis Carrillo was one of the students who walked.
Carrillo served in the United States Marine Corps, earned a political-science degree from UCLA, graduated from UC Berkeley School of Law, and entered the California bar in December 1976.
He built a bilingual, intergenerational practice in South Pasadena with his son Michael and lawyers handling civil rights, school abuse, catastrophic injury, and wrongful death. The firm takes a client's account in the language in which the events were experienced, then tests that account against agency records, policies, video, medical evidence, and testimony.
What the District Knew
For decades, Carrillo has built school-abuse cases around two sets of evidence: individualized proof of what happened to each child, and a record of what administrators knew, documented, or failed to address before the harm continued.
He represented families after the 2012 arrest of Miramonte Elementary teacher Mark Berndt. The litigation examined complaints dating to 1990 and 1993 and the district's response in the years before Berndt's arrest — notice evidence that placed district knowledge, supervision, and student protection alongside the teacher's conduct. The cases resolved for more than $139 million for eighty-two children.
At De La Torre Elementary, discovery produced a confidential district memorandum describing parents protesting teacher Robert Pimentel's conduct toward young girls — documentation of notice before the later abuse, tying the supervision case directly to the district's prior knowledge and response. The case settled for $58 million.
Complaints, confidential memoranda, required-report records, individualized education plans, and depositions supply the chronology Carrillo's cases turn on: the timeline that separates an employee's conduct from the administrative decisions that preserved his access or failed to protect a child.
The same discipline governed the case of eight-year-old Moises Murillo, a child with Down syndrome who depended on a specialized wheelchair with a five-point harness. School staff moved him to an ordinary seat, secured him with a gait belt, and left him alone. He fell backward and died. Depositions established that staff had disregarded his individualized education program — the document that existed precisely to keep him safe. Luis and Michael Carrillo recovered $18 million for his family.
MacArthur Park
On May Day 2007, LAPD Metro Division officers used batons and rubber bullets against demonstrators and journalists at an immigration rally in MacArthur Park, injuring forty-two people.
Carrillo pursued claims for approximately forty injured people. The litigation produced $13 million in settlements and changes to LAPD crowd-control policies, training, and command protocols for public demonstrations. The matter paired the accounts of injured demonstrators and journalists with the policies, training, and command decisions governing the police response, allowing the resolution to address both the individual injuries and the way the department would meet the next crowd.
Edward Bronstein
In March 2020, California Highway Patrol officers restrained thirty-eight-year-old Edward Bronstein face-down at the Altadena station during a blood draw. A nearly eighteen-minute video recorded Bronstein saying he could not breathe and offering to comply before becoming unresponsive.
The video established the sequence of the restraint and allowed the Carrillo firm to examine the officers' and attending nurse's actions against CHP policy. The firm's federal civil-rights action ended in a $24 million settlement from the State of California. Seven CHP officers and the attending nurse were later charged, and the CHP changed its policies to prohibit techniques and transport methods carrying a substantial risk of positional asphyxia.
Manuela Rodriguez and Federal Immigration Claims
In Long Beach, a school-district safety officer fired into a car moving away from a fight and struck eighteen-year-old Manuela "Mona" Rodriguez in the head. The case ended with a $13 million settlement. The Board of Education fired the officer, and prosecutors charged him with second-degree murder.
Carrillo and his son also filed federal tort claims for six people — five United States citizens and one lawful permanent resident — who alleged unlawful detention, racial profiling, or excessive force during federal immigration operations in Southern California. The clients included Javier Ramirez, who reported several days in federal custody despite identifying himself as a citizen, and Cary Lopez Alvarado, who was detained while nine months pregnant. Half a century after the walkouts, the work of insisting that Mexican American residents receive the law's full protection continues on Carrillo's docket.
Jane Doe and California's Rape-Shield Law
In Jane Doe v. Superior Court, Carrillo represented a girl abused by her fourth-grade teacher in 2009 and 2010 — and later abused by a family friend in 2013. The school district sought to introduce the later assault to reduce the damages attributable to the first abuse.
The trial court and Court of Appeal concluded that California's civil rape-shield statute did not cover involuntary conduct. The California Supreme Court stayed the trial and, in 2023, unanimously reversed. Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote that the statute protects survivors of involuntary abuse and requires a defendant seeking such evidence to satisfy its procedural protections.
Working with State Senator Anna Caballero, Carrillo's firm then helped develop Senate Bill 1386. The measure became known as “Suzie’s Law.” It amended Evidence Code section 1106 to bar evidence of later sexual abuse when offered to argue consent or the absence of injury. The Supreme Court had brought involuntary abuse within the statute's procedural protections; Suzie's Law barred the later abuse from being used for those purposes.
Material-Witness Detention
Carrillo represented Jesus G., one of two minors detained as material witnesses in In re Francisco M. — children held not because they were accused of anything, but because the state wanted their testimony. The appellate court required prompt hearings and held that judicial discretion to detain a witness under Penal Code section 1332 remains bounded by the California Constitution's protection against unreasonable restraint. Even the state's legitimate need for evidence, the ruling confirmed, does not suspend a child's liberty without prompt review.
Continuing Practice
Carrillo's teams organize witness accounts, agency policies, training records, video, medical evidence, school-district files, and the decision paths behind official action — record-building that links individual relief to the policy, training, or procedural changes obtained in the same matters. He continues to practice through Carrillo Law Firm, representing clients in civil-rights, police-misconduct, childhood-abuse, catastrophic-injury, and wrongful-death matters.
Nearly six decades after he walked out of an East Los Angeles high school, Carrillo represents families seeking to hold schools responsible for the children in their care.