Jury Clears Simi Officers in Suit Claiming Racial Bias

A federal jury on Friday exonerated five Simi Valley police officers who were accused of racial bias in violating a black family’s civil rights when they mistakenly arrested the wife and mother last year on an invalid warrant.

Plaintiffs Debra Thomas, 33; her husband, Steven, 38, and their four children originally had sought $10 million in damages in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. But the six-member jury awarded them nothing after about six hours of deliberations and four days of testimony.

Attorney Stephen Yagman, who represented the Thomases, attributed what he described as a racist verdict to the lack of black jury members.

“Today I’m ashamed to be a member of the white race,” Yagman said.

Bert H. Deixler, the attorney for the police officers, hailed the verdict as fair and correct because the officers “didn’t do anything wrong. They were doing the best they could in an imperfect world.”

The case stemmed from Debra Thomas’ arrest at her home on June 8, 1988, and the family’s claim that police ignored her when she tried to tell them their warrant was invalid.

Thomas, an auditing clerk for the Southern California Gas Co., had been convicted twice of writing bad checks and once on a charge of child endangerment (the 15-year-old involved in that case had threatened her son, both sides said). She was on probation, and a warrant had been issued for her arrest after she failed to appear in court on charges of violating the terms of her probation.

The warrant was issued on May 12, 1988. By June 8, Thomas had gone to Ventura Superior Court and resolved the matter.

Thomas said the officers ignored her protests, wrestled her to the floor in her garage and frightened her family after bursting through the front door of their home.

The officers said Thomas was fighting and screaming during the arrest and did not mention that the warrant had been cleared up until they were in a squad car on their way to the police station.

At the station, they testified, they verified the warrant’s cancellation and released Thomas. A watch commander drove Thomas home and apologized to her family and neighbors.

Police said that Thomas’ family ignored their knocks on the door, forcing them to kick it in, and that Thomas was hiding behind a water heater in the garage. They said she resisted them, leaving them little choice but to force her to the floor and handcuff her.

The officers named in the suit were Sgt. Larry Twichell, 43, a 13-year member of the department; Sgt. Pat Hopkins, 52, a 17-year member and the department’s first female officer; David Weiner, 27; Don Anderson, 37, and Paul Nolan, 28, trainees at the time.

Deixler said Friday that “the officers suffered from having false charges made against them and publicized in newspapers. I hope people will bear in mind that simply because something is filed in a court document doesn’t mean it’s true.”