Seal Beach Police at Fault in Jail Death, Suit Claims

The family of a Garden Grove man who died in the Seal Beach city jail last July filed suit Wednesday, claiming the city, Rockwell International Corp. and a Rockwell employee failed to give necessary medical aid.

The Orange County Superior Court action filed on behalf of the family of John Mark Rogers, 37, seeks unspecified general and punitive damages. A previous claim filed with the city, a prerequisite to filing a suit, sought $1 million.

The suit claims that police officers summoned to a Rockwell plant parking lot to stop an erratic driver shortly before midnight July 26 should have seen that Rogers “obviously require(d) immediate medical attention.”

Instead, the suit claims, officers put him in a jail cell sometime after midnight. About 12:50 a.m., the suit continues, officers saw Rogers in convulsions but did not seek medical attention until 1:20 a.m. when they saw him lying on the cell floor.

“While he was in the parking lot, he fell on his face,” said Robert E. Aitken of Long Beach, attorney for the man’s widow, three children and mother. “He was incoherent; he was not talking at all; there were no signs of animation. There were enough warning signs at least to put police officers on notice that he needed medical help.”

An autopsy showed that Rogers had a blood-alcohol level of .13 and a substantial amount of a prescription anti-depressant drug, Norpramin, in his body. A blood-alcohol level of .10 is enough to convict a motorist of drunk driving.

Seal Beach police said at the time that Rogers, a self-employed jeweler, was “obviously intoxicated” and was routinely put in the cell until he became sober.