Damages Awarded in Death of Suspect : Jury Rules Police Used Excessive Force in Drunkenness Arrest

A Los Angeles federal court jury assessed $150,000 in damages Wednesday against a police officer for using excessive force that led to the death of a man Jan. 10, 1984, two days after he was arrested for public drunkenness.

After 19 hours of deliberation, the verdict was returned against Los Angeles Police Officer Carlton Bonner after the same jury declined to find Sgt. Jack Rockett and Officer Rudy Vidal liable for any wrongdoing in the fatal injuries to Hugh Thaddeus Clark, 55.

Police Department spokesman Lt. Dan Cooke said he was “dismayed that the jury could reach such a verdict, since there was no credible evidence to support” the finding against Bonner.

Criminal Charges Question

Stephen Yagman, who represented the dead man’s mother, Goldie Dixon, said he has been told that the U.S. Justice Department is taking the case to a federal grand jury to determine whether criminal charges can be filed against the officers involved.

In its findings Wednesday, the jury in the civil trial also refused to render a verdict against Police Chief Daryl F. Gates or the City of Los Angeles, thus rejecting Yagman’s claim that the Police Department had an unwritten policy that “condones and encourages excessive force against citizens.”

Because the jury designated the damages “compensatory” and not “punitive,” Bonner will not be personally liable for their payment, which will be assumed by the city out of its general fund, according to Deputy City Atty. G. Daniel Woodard, who defended the officers in the two-week trial.

Jury Keeps Quiet

The six-member jury declined to answer reporters’ questions about the reasoning behind their verdicts.

A source close to the case said, however, that after determining Bonner’s liability at an early point in the deliberations, jurors spent most of their remaining time on the question of whether it was customary for Los Angeles police officers, as a matter of department policy, to use excessive force.

Rockett, the senior officer involved in the incident, was accused in the lawsuit of watching the beating and “doing nothing to intercede.”

Yagman claimed that Vidal struck Clark with his baton during the arrest fracas, but most of the testimony focused on Bonner’s role in the beating.

“All our witnesses implicated Bonner from beginning to end,” Yagman said.

Caught by Surprise

Woodard disagreed, echoing Cooke’s statement by saying: “I was surprised. I don’t know what evidence they could have based their finding on.”

Clark died at California Hospital two days after he stopped breathing during the altercation with the police, who arrested him on suspicion of drunkenness near 50th Street and Broadway.

A preliminary autopsy listed Clark’s death as a homicide and showed that he had broken ribs and a shattered collarbone.

Police maintained that the damage to his body was “consistent with injuries frequently sustained with the administration of cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” which the officers gave Clark after he stopped breathing at the arrest site.