Parents of Slain Man File Wrongful-Death Suit

A $5-million wrongful-death suit has been filed against Los Angeles County in the shooting of an unarmed Hawthorne man, who was mistaken by a sheriff’s deputy as a suspect in the robbery of a Lennox-area liquor store.

The suit, filed in Torrance Superior Court by relatives of Marcus Donel, 30, a law firm courier with no crimminal record, charged that Donel had done nothing suspicious when the deputy stopped him outside his home on May 31. Futhermore, the suit said, the liquor store owner reported that he had been robbed by a Latino about 18 years old, but when deputies broadcast a description of the suspect he was mistakely described as black.

Confronted by deputies, investigators said Donel lay on the ground as ordered, but then he allegedly drew one arm close to his body, as if to draw a gun, and Deputy Patrick Maxwell fired, shooting Donel in the chest. The Sheriff’s Department later concluded that Maxwell had acted properly in fear that he might be shot.