Family of Man Slain by Sheriff’s Deputy Sues for $5 Million : Law Enforcement: Unarmed Hawthorne victim was mistaken for robbery suspect. Sheriff’s investigators concluded deputy was justified.

The family of an unarmed Hawthorne man, who was shot to death last year by a sheriff’s deputy after he was mistaken for a robbery suspect, has filed a $5-million wrongful death lawsuit against the county.

Marcus Donel’s mother, two sisters and two daughters charge in a lawsuit in Torrance Superior Court that deputies should not have stopped Donel, a black man, because a liquor store owner said the man who robbed him was Latino. The suit claims that Donel did nothing suspicious before he was shot outside his home last May 31 by Deputy Patrick Maxwell.

Sheriff’s investigators said that Donel was shot when he made “suspicious movements” after he was stopped by deputies who heard a broadcast that misidentified the robber as black, instead of Latino.

The incident began at 9:50 p.m., when the owner of Capri Liquor in the Lennox district called police to say that he had been robbed by a male “Mexican,” about 18 years old. The description was broadcast to patrol cars.

Deputies then went to the store to “get a better description” of the suspect, according to tape recordings of radio transmissions that the Sheriff’s Department released shortly after the shooting.

The deputies broadcast a second description of the suspect: “One male black, 17 to 18, 5-6, 125, wearing all black and a black baseball cap.”

Deputies subsequently stopped Donel--although 5-9, 160 pounds and 30 years old--because he was also wearing black and substantially matched the description of the robber, investigators said.

Donel partially cooperated with orders to lie down, but uttered a string of obscenities and then drew one arm close to his body, as if to reach for a gun, investigators said.

Maxwell was concerned for his safety and fired one shot, which hit Donel in the chest. After the shooting, deputies found that Donel did not have a gun.

Sheriff’s investigators concluded that Maxwell acted properly, believing he would be shot. Sheriff’s officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday to say why the errant identification was broadcast.

Donel’s family criticized the department’s investigation and picketed the Lennox Sheriff’s Station in the month after the killing.

Donel’s stepbrother, Terry Curd, was with him at the time and gave a different account of the shooting, according to the family’s lawyers, who have asked Curd not to speak to the press.

Donel was a courier for a law firm and had no criminal record, his family said. He supported a wife and two daughters, 10 and 11 years old, at the time of his death.

The lawsuit calls deputies “incompetent and insensitive.” It also charges deputies with defamation for identifying Donel as the man who robbed Capri Liquor.