An Arrest, Then Death of Man--Probe of Police Action Under Way

The Harrison family had made hamburgers for dinner. The dishes were done, the kids were in bed and Stuart and Lynn Harrison were watching “Miami Vice” in their Lakewood home when two Long Beach police officers came to the door.

The officers told Harrison he was under arrest on suspicion of kidnaping and assault with a deadly weapon. As Harrison was led away in handcuffs, his wife told police, “No, this is a mistake.”

Ten minutes later, Harrison, 40, a laboratory technician for Matrix Science Corp. of Torrance, was lying face down across the hood of a patrol car, shaking violently. He subsequently collapsed, never to regain consciousness. The father of three young sons died in Los Altos Hospital two days later, Jan. 13, 1985.

According to police records, Harrison had lapsed into an apparent seizure while in the grasp of Long Beach Police Officer Randy Hausauer, who was conducting a pat search for concealed weapons. Police reports said that before the apparent seizure, Harrison had “seemed disoriented, but coherent and cooperative.” The cause of Harrison’s collapse was unknown, police records said.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office reached a different conclusion.

In an autopsy report of April 15, 1985, deputy medical examiner Sara K. Reddy classified Harrison’s death as a “homicide or (death at the hands of another).”

Harrison had sustained tears inside two arteries in his neck, Reddy said. His spinal column had been compressed and he had hemorrhaged “due to trauma of the neck.” The cause of death was a loss of oxygen to the brain due to bleeding at the base of the brain where it connects to the spinal column, the autopsy said

Harrison’s death is being investigated by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Richard R. Romero, chief of criminal complaints.

The death also is being investigated by a federal grand jury that has been hearing testimony since last summer.

Long Beach Assistant City Atty. Robert E. Shannon said four Long Beach police officers involved in the case have testified before the grand jury. Hausauer, however, has not testified before the grand jury because he is the subject of the inquiry, Shannon said.

Harrison’s wife and Lt. John E. Anderson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also said they have testified before the federal grand jury.

Romero, who declined to discuss the grand jury investigation, said his office would review results of an FBI investigation and make a recommendation to the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division in Washington, which has the final say on whether to initiate a criminal prosecution.

Harrison’s death also is the subject of a $36-million civil suit filed last year in federal court in Los Angeles. The suit charges that police officers “willfully and maliciously jerked, pulled, struck and beat (Harrison) about the head and body” to cause his death.

Numerous Defendants

The suit names as defendants the cities of Lakewood and Long Beach, the county of Los Angeles, Long Beach Police Chief Charles B. Ussery, and seven officers who were present during Harrison’s arrest. The officers named in the suit are Long Beach Officers Hausauer, Dale Mukanos, Ken Quaack, Vincent Platt and Sgt. David Bauer, and sheriff’s Deputies Frank Matillo and Richard Burlingame.

The five Long Beach police officers did not return a reporter’s phone calls. The department has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation and Shannon said he has instructed the officers not to discuss the Harrison case.

In an interview, Shannon said that none of the officers used “any significant force” on Harrison. He added that at an upcoming civil trial the city will dispute the medical examiner’s finding that Harrison died at the hands of another.

At the trial, Shannon said the city will present testimony from doctors and medical experts that Harrison’s collapse and death were caused by a heart attack. Harrison had atherosclerosis, or a thickening of artery walls, according to the autopsy, and because of that, he was “a heart attack waiting to happen,” Shannon said.

No History of Problems

However, the Harrison family’s lawyer, Edward D. LaPlount of San Diego, said Harrison had no history of heart problems and contended that he was in excellent health.

At the trial, the city also plans to introduce medical evidence that the hemorrhaging that the coroner said caused Harrison’s death occurred while Harrison was at the hospital, rather than in police custody, Shannon said. He added that the two arteries in Harrison’s neck may have been damaged during the autopsy.

One deputy who was present during Harrison’s arrest had another explanation for his injuries.

Five months after Harrison’s death, Deputy Burlingame went to his supervisor and said he had not slept or eaten in several days, and wanted to “come clean,” according to a handwritten, internal Sheriff’s Department report on June 3, 1985, by Lt. John E. Anderson.

According to the report, Burlingame said he had seen a Long Beach police officer apply a chokehold around Harrison’s neck. In his statement, Anderson does not identify which officer allegedly used the chokehold.

‘Burning’ Other Officers

“Deputy Burlingame was worried about ‘burning’ fellow officers, but I assured him that if other officers chose to lie about their actions, that he should realize he has to live with himself and his conscience the rest of his life,” Anderson wrote in his report, which was subpoenaed by the Harrison family’s attorney.

Burlingame later claimed in a deposition for the civil suit that he had never seen a Long Beach police officer apply a chokehold and that Anderson had been mistaken in his report. But Anderson, in his own deposition, said his report was accurate and that Burlingame had demonstrated the hold to him. Burlingame declined comment, while Anderson, in an interview, said, “My story has not changed.”

In a March 11 deposition, Police Chief Ussery said the department has never investigated the allegation that Harrison died after he was allegedly placed in a chokehold by a Long Beach police officer. Ussery said the allegation “rose to the level of a rumor and I do not open or conduct investigations on the basis of rumor.”

Conflicting Reports

In the civil suit, it is alleged that Long Beach police and county sheriff’s deputies “willfully and maliciously” allowed Harrison to lie in the street for about 30 minutes without medical attention. The police report, however, said that Harrison was treated within five minutes as paramedics were summoned shortly after Harrison collapsed.

The suit also charges that police prevented Lynn Harrison, an X-ray technician, from attending to her husband, who, according to a police report, was lying face down in the street at the time. During this time, Harrison’s three sons were “physically restrained” by police from going to Harrison, the suit charges. Since Harrison’s death, his wife and three sons, aged 15, 13 and 5, have required psychiatric treatment, the suit says.

The suit also charges that police provided “false and misleading” information to doctors on the nature of Harrison’s injuries, and that the officers conspired to deprive Harrison of his civil rights, as well as to protect themselves from civil liability and criminal punishment.

Harrison was arrested for allegedly kidnaping and assaulting Tharesa Lynn Crase, now 21, of Long Beach on the night of Jan. 11, 1985.

While the facts of that evening are in dispute, both sides do agree that Harrison offered Crase a ride in his 1977 Chevy Luv truck and that she accepted. Crase was at a bus stop in front of the Naval Hospital in Carson, wearing a cast on a broken ankle. She was waiting for a ride to the Long Beach Naval Station to meet her sailor boyfriend, Crase said in a deposition.

Police records say that on his way to the base, Harrison pulled over near the Terminal Island Bridge and told Crase it was time to “pay her dues.” She tried to escape and was cut with a knife that Harrison was holding in his left hand, the police report said. The injury was a puncture wound just below the right breast, the report said.

Harrison told Crase he wanted to fondle her, but she told him the wound was bleeding, police records said. Harrison then drove Crase to the naval base and dropped her off. Crase took down Harrison’s license plate number and told Navy officials she was the victim of an attempted rape, police reports said.

Superficial Wound

Crase was treated by Corpsman Eric A. Crucitti, an emergency medical technician at the naval dispensary. In his deposition, Crucitti said Crase’s wound was “only a scratch, something you would put a Band-Aid over . . . the type of wound that maybe a child would get and never mention to its mother, and it would heal on its own.”

Crucitti said that during his examination of Crase, “she was babbling on about her boyfriend. How she was trying to get ahold of her boyfriend before he went home on leave. She seemed more upset about that than anything.”

In her deposition, Crase said she was upset that night because “I didn’t want him (her soon-to-be husband) to leave without me seeing him first. . . . I was afraid that he wasn’t going to marry me.”

In her deposition, Crase admitted she had first told Navy Shore Patrol officers that she had been raped and then changed her allegation to assault with a deadly weapon.

Officers later recovered a steak knife from Harrison’s truck, attorney LaPlount said. In her deposition, Crase described the weapon as a “fold-up knife.”

Harrison’s wife and LaPlount, however, contend that the knife was never used on Crase and that Harrison merely gave the woman a ride because he was a good Samaritan.

“He was very warm, considerate, gentle and soft-spoken, and I’ve never known him to hurt anybody or do anything malicious to anybody,” his wife said.

“The only victims that night were us.”