Police Negligent in Killing, Lawyer Says

Los Angeles police officers acted negligently when they shot and killed a 27-year-old man who allegedly reached for a shotgun when officers awakened him in his parked car on a Sepulveda street, an attorney asserted Thursday.

In opening statements to a Van Nuys Superior Court jury, an attorney for the victim’s father said police failed to follow the department’s procedures when they approached the vehicle and saw David P. Lally asleep in the front seat and a shotgun in the back seat.

Officers Richard Haberland and Byron Travis could have reached through the back of the car, which had no rear window, and safely confiscated the weapon while Lally lay asleep, attorney Carol A. Watson said.

Lally’s father, David A. Lally, 65, a retired engineer for the Los Angeles City Fire Department, is suing the city and the two officers for wrongful death in the June, 1981, shooting. He has not specified the amount of damages he is seeking.

The officers said they shouted at Lally repeatedly in an attempt to awaken him. When that failed, Travis opened the driver’s side door and tapped Lally on the feet with a flashlight, according to Asst. City Atty. Philip J. Sugar.

Shot in Back of Head

The startled Lally quickly reached over the back seat, grabbed the shotgun and pointed it at Travis, Sugar told the jury. Fearing that his partner was about to be killed, Haberland reached through the window on the passenger side of the car and shot Lally once in the back of the head, Sugar said.

The shotgun was not loaded, Sugar acknowledged.

Haberland had “no other alternative in that split second but to protect his partner’s life,” Sugar said.

The senior Lally testified Thursday that his son, an outdoorsman, had borrowed the father’s shotgun four days earlier for a hunting trip. The father said his son had planned to kill rattlesnakes and make belts from the skins.

The younger Lally, who had been living with his father in Highland Park, apparently was returning from the hunting trip when his car ran out of gas at Gaviota Avenue and Nordhoff Street. A passing motorist summoned police about 11:30 p.m. when he saw Lally walking down the street, carrying the shotgun in one hand and a gas can in the other.

When police responded shortly after midnight, Lally had returned to his car and fallen asleep.

The trial, which began Thursday in the courtroom of Judge Joel Rudof, is expected to conclude in about a week.