The Nation - News from Aug. 6, 1985

The city of Borger, Tex., and four police officers must pay $1.38 million to the family of a man who was gunned down by lawmen after he was mistaken for a fugitive, a federal appeals court ruled. Police had been looking for Lonnie Cox, a fugitive they had chased onto James C. Grandstaff’s ranch. Grandstaff was shot when he saw the squad cars’ flashing lights and drove his truck to investigate. After Grandstaff was shot, the city and its police “denied their failures and concerned themselves only with unworthy, if not despicable, means to avoid legal liability,” the ruling by the three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said.