San Diego police are being accused of engaging in a broad cover-up of excessive force, false arrest and worse in an amended lawsuit stemming from an off-duty encounter between one of their own and a federal law enforcement officer.
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The misconduct allegedly began in July 2024, when Officer Jonathan Ferraro used a racial slur and forcefully shoved U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent Chu Ding to the ground in a Costco parking lot in Carmel Valley.
Three witnesses called police to report “an off-duty officer flashed his badge and slammed someone on the ground,” the lawsuit says.
Before sending help, however, the 911 operator contacted a supervisor, and the response subsequently went out as a “Cover Now-Hot Call,” the legal complaint says — meaning it was dispatched as a life-or-death emergency for an officer needing immediate assistance.
As many as 14 San Diego police personnel converged on the scene, including a lieutenant, a sergeant, two detectives and a media relations officer, the plaintiff’s lawyers said.
The lawsuit says that throughout the early investigation, Ferraro was allowed to roam the parking lot talking to potential witnesses. Ding, who was initially knocked unconscious and suffered serious head and shoulder injuries, was placed in handcuffs.
“When bystanders protested the handcuffing of Mr. Ding, who had been a victim of violence, officers ignored them,” the lawsuit says. “Instead of separating the eyewitnesses to interview them, officers allowed Ferraro to speak loudly in front of an audience his own version of what happened.”
Neither the San Diego Police Department nor the City Attorney’s Office would discuss the allegations. The District Attorney’s Office reviewed the case and declined to file criminal charges.
The lawsuit was originally filed in federal court last year. Ding’s attorneys submitted the amended complaint Tuesday, after learning more about what happened through the discovery process and after the court rejected defendants’ motions to dismiss the case.
According to the revised lawsuit, San Diego police knew within minutes of responding to the 911 calls that Ferraro had “completely freaked out.” Officers at the scene viewed the Costco parking lot video recording, and several witnesses reported that Ferraro was the aggressor.
Until police learned that Ding was a federal agent, they planned to issue him a citation and transport him to a hospital for treatment, the complaint says. But the plaintiff alleges that police instead decided to detain Ding in an effort to cover up Ferraro’s abuse.
According to the lawsuit, they did so even though they knew that video footage, 911 calls and witness interviews showed there was no basis for any criminal charges against Ding and that the district attorney would not prosecute him if he were arrested.
“The news that an off-duty SDPD officer had screamed a racial epithet and body-slammed a federal officer, knocking him out, would be a public relations nightmare,” the lawsuit alleges. “The assembled officers, the PR office and the supervisor believed that the only way they could keep Mr. Ding quiet was to charge him with a felony.”
According to the complaint, police did not immediately book Ding into San Diego County jail.
Instead, he was taken to a police substation, where he says he was denied food, water and medical care for more than six hours and forced to write an apology to Ferraro.
“SDPD took Mr. Ding into custody at 3 p.m., but held him so long he did not get pain medication at the emergency room until 9:30 p.m.,” the lawsuit says. “The injured Mr. Ding remained in tight handcuffs behind his back the entire time he was in their custody.”
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Once doctors were finished treating Ding, police took him to jail. It was close to midnight when he was formally booked into custody — a move that alerted DHS, which monitors jail bookings — and the federal agent bailed out a short time later.
“Even with the fabricated evidence, the district attorney rejected the charges. But the damage was already done,” the lawsuit says. “Mr. Ding suffered significant injuries to his head and shoulder and harm to his reputation.
“He suffered the humiliation of being forced to write a letter of apology to the man who assaulted him.”
In addition to naming four new defendants and adding an allegation that police wrongly denied Ding medical care, the lawsuit argues the San Diego Police Department has a history of officer misconduct and command staff covering up those breaches.
It cites a 2010 case in which officers proceeded with a traffic stop even after learning they had misread a license plate. The officers ended up using pepper spray and a stun gun on two people before taking them into custody on suspicion of resisting arrest.
A judge later determined that the two officers had unlawfully detained the occupants of the car. The Internal Affairs office took no action against the officers, the lawsuit said, and both were later promoted.
Five years later, another officer shot and killed a man from 17 feet away less than five seconds after exiting his patrol car. No criminal charges were filed.
The officer initially admitted the man was unarmed, but his lawyer stopped all questioning. Five days later, police allowed the officer and his lawyer to review the video in private for 20 minutes before restarting the interview and claiming for the first time that the dead man had been armed.
One year later, the same officer accidentally fired his service weapon into a baby’s crib during a probation search but avoided any discipline, the Ding lawsuit said.
“This has been the ongoing pattern and practice within the department in which officers who engage in misconduct are given several days to meet with their lawyers, view all footage of the incident and come up with a story to justify charging the victim with resisting arrest or being a threat,” the complaint says.
It also alleges that department leaders routinely undermine the Commission on Police Practices, a civilian oversight board approved by voters in 2020 after years of complaints about excessive use of force and other misconduct.
“In response, the city of San Diego dragged its feet, taking years to set up the commission,” the lawsuit says. “Despite the clear mandate of the public, to date CPP still has no power to conduct independent investigations because of the delays involving the police union.”
The federal complaint now includes 11 separate claims and eight defendants, not including defendants whose names are unknown.
The city, which did not prevail in its earlier motion to dismiss the case, has yet to respond to the updated court filing.
Lawsuits alleging San Diego police misconduct and negligence cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Late last year, the City Council approved a $30 million settlement with a family of a teen who was fatally shot by police while fleeing gunfire.
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