Two Santa Ana police officers caught on video throwing a man to the ground and repeatedly punching him have a history of using force that has been the subject of outside and internal investigations.
The Santa Ana Police Department has not disclosed the names of the officers involved in the arrest of Florentino Lopez Jr., but a legal document reviewed by the Orange County Register identified them as Luis Casillas and Marco Benavides.
Casillas was one of two officers investigated by the California Department of Justice after he fatally shot 31-year-old Noe Rodriguez Martinez in 2024. The officers were responding to reports of a man with a shotgun in downtown Santa Ana.
The weapon was later found to be a plastic toy gun described in a state DOJ report as “a replica pump action shotgun.” The DOJ declined to charge either officer, writing that “the evidence is insufficient to prove that Officer Casillas committed a crime,” with officials concluding each officer “actually and reasonably believed that deadly force was necessary” against an imminent threat.
But the state still found problems with the shooting, saying that “the 29 shots fired with a store in the backdrop may have put the public at risk of harm.” Additionally, the officers did not attempt to offer medical aid until 13 minutes after the shooting, which the DOJ called a “significant delay.”
For some, Casillas has become a familiar topic at regular Santa Ana City Council and Police Oversight Commission meetings, where members of Community Service Organization (CSO) Orange County, a police accountability group, and other Santa Ana residents have called for his firing.
At a recent council meeting, members of the group held up a sign that read “FIRE KILLER COP” with a photo of Casillas underneath.
The other officer, Benavides, was one of several SAPD officers involved in a documented use of force incident in June 2025 during the arrest of a 15-year-old armed robbery suspect who was later hospitalized for his injuries.
According to a 2025 claim for personal damages filed against the city by Carrazco Law, the firm representing the teen and his family, the 15-year-old suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung, abdominal pain, chest pain and back pain.
A separate SAPD forensic report said the juvenile was treated at OC Global Medical Center and showed visible signs of facial swelling, blood on his shirt, hands and face, as well as redness around his head and torso.
The liability claim alleges the teen was “brutally beaten,” accusing officers of battery and negligent use of force.
The boy was at a friend’s house when he heard orders to come outside, before he left through the back and ran, then stopped and complied, according to the claim, which said he had his hands up, was unarmed and presented “no threat to the officers.” The subsequent beating, the claim said, resulted in bruising and fractures to his face, bruising and injuries to his back, shoulders, arms, and body, and other injuries.
In a supplemental use-of-force report, Benavides said that he delivered a knee strike to the right side of the suspect’s head and “checked for compliance,” but “the strike was ineffective, as the suspect continued reaching for his waistband.” He then delivered two more knee strikes to the right side of the head, he said, before a “final knee strike had the desired effect,” enabling two other officers to gain control and handcuff the suspect.
The officer said he then briefly placed his left knee on the suspect’s head, “applying minimal pressure” to assist with handcuffing.
Benavides claimed that those actions were taken due to the “totality of the circumstances,” including the use of an alleged firearm in the robbery and the suspect actively resisting. Casillas also assisted in that arrest, according to his own report, though whether he directly participated in any use of force remained under investigation.
In the latest incident, Casillas and Benavides are facing criticism for their tactics in arresting Lopez, whom they detained near his home on Oct. 1.
The video footage shows at least one officer throwing him to the ground and punching him repeatedly while family members plead with them to stop. Relatives who saw the incident accuse the officers of striking Lopez with a knee to the face and pressing a knee on his neck.
Less than a week after the video surfaced, the Santa Ana City Council voted unanimously to hire an independent investigator to examine the incident and report back directly to the council. The vote also authorized the police chief and city manager to, at their discretion, outsource the administrative review typically handled by SAPD’s Internal Affairs division.
Sgt. John Kachirisky, president of the Santa Ana Police Officers Association, said in a statement posted to Instagram that the incident “has raised serious concerns,” but called the “unprecedented actions and thoughtless remarks” by some council members “equally troubling.”
He said a procedure for investigating allegations of police misconduct is already in place and that officers have a right to due process, calling the council’s unanimous decision to turn the investigation over to an outsider “unprecedented” and raising “serious concerns” about the council’s confidence in SAPD’s current policies and procedures.
Neither Kachirisky nor the union responded to previous requests for comment from the Register.
Mayor Valerie Amezcua said she supports the independent review and investigation, as well as any action taken against the officers if the investigation concludes they caused significant harm.
John Kremer, the attorney representing Lopez, plans to challenge the four charges against him, including one felony and one misdemeanor count of resisting officers, jaywalking and smoking marijuana near a school. He said the 28-year-old was in his backyard when SAPD drove by and officers called him over, and he approached them down the street.
Kremer said the complaint relies on a “narrative presented by the police.”
It is unclear whether the officers have been relieved of their regular duties or placed on administrative leave. A department spokesperson did not address the question in SAPD’s response to a previous inquiry from the Register.
Despite multiple attempts to contact Casillas and Benavides or a union representative, neither officer could be reached for comment.
The tactics employed during the Lopez arrest will be weighed against the department standards for use of force and Santa Ana’s training materials.
The department’s arrest-control instructor course teaches officers a four-step doctrine: “Close the Distance. Take the suspect down. Control them when you get them down. Take them into custody.”
The department’s Arrest Control Technique Instructor Update Course prioritizes taking suspects to the ground quickly and controlling them through what the curriculum calls “pain compliance,” according to the 35-page training outline.
Elsewhere, the curriculum instructs officers in a technique called “lateral head displacement,” directing them to pull an elbow up against a prone suspect’s head at a 45-degree angle. “This will misalign the spine,” the outline states, “which is our goal.”
It also teaches joint-manipulation holds and includes a ground-control hold dubbed the “Lesnar.” The hold shares its name with WWE star Brock Lesnar.
Throughout the course, optics remain a central theme. Instructors are reminded that “ineffective force looks excessive,” that an officer on a prone suspect’s back “points to a highly dominant position,” and that, “given the current climate,” officers should focus on getting a suspect into custody “as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
At the same time, the curriculum is threaded with its own guardrails and walks instructors through the state’s tightened deadly-force standard and the rule requiring use of force to be judged through the eyes of a “reasonable officer.” It also directs that a handcuffed, prone suspect be held with “no added weight or pressure” on the spine or neck, and tells officers arriving after a use of force has already occurred that their role is “to assist in handcuffing, not to continue using force.”
Whether those guardrails held up in the Lopez arrest is now the question before the independent investigator. But for some members of the public, that isn’t enough.
Since the video surfaced, CSO members have held up signs at council meetings reading “Justice for Florentino Lopez” and “Fire the Officers”.