Mayor Bradley Must Give Drug Raid Deposition

A federal magistrate ruled Thursday that Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley must submit to questioning in a lawsuit stemming from a massive drug raid in South-Central Los Angeles last summer that caused the destruction of four apartments.

Magistrate Joseph Reichmann rejected Bradley’s request that he be excused from testifying in one of four lawsuits filed against the city, Police Department officials and the 88 police officers who took part in the Aug. 1, 1988, raid at 39th Street and Dalton Avenue.

Deputy City Atty. David Hotchkiss said the city made the request because the mayor did not authorize or witness the raid and had no part in deciding how it would be carried out.

With the magistrate’s ruling, attorney Stephen Yagman, who is representing two plaintiffs in one of the suits, will be allowed to question Bradley for four hours on Nov. 20.

Yagman acknowledged that the deposition is unlikely to shed light on what happened in the raid.

“It’s not a question of what he can do to clear the case up,” Yagman said. “It concerns whether he is willing to take responsibility for what happened.”