Heavy Bruises Found on Police Chokehold Victim

An autopsy on a Fountain Valley teen-ager who died in the custody of Inglewood police after a Grateful Dead concert last month confirms he died from a carotid chokehold and that his body was covered with bruises, a coroner’s office spokesman said Tuesday.

The autopsy on 19-year-old Patrick Shanahan, released this week by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, describes “considerable bruising” on Shanahan’s forehead, neck, scalp, cheek, jaw, shoulder, chest, ribs and knee, said coroner’s office spokesman Bob Dambacher.

The bruises on Shanahan’s back were as much as an inch deep and were so prevalent that they could not be individually distinguished, Deputy Medical Examiner Irwin L. Golden wrote in the 25-page report.

Shanahan, a student at UC Santa Barbara and an avid Grateful Dead fan, died Dec. 10 shortly after being arrested by five officers outside the Forum for allegedly being under the influence of drugs.

Lawrence Trygstad, a Los Angeles lawyer retained by the Shanahan family, said the autopsy “further substantiates the excessive force and the brutality that (officers) used. With the autopsy report, the witnesses and everything else, there’s no question the officers used excessive force.”

The family’s lawyer said the autopsy affirms witness accounts that Shanahan was repeatedly beaten by police officers with night sticks.

William Shanahan, assessing the autopsy report, said that his son “was a mess from head to toe. The police version of events doesn’t jibe.”

While acknowledging that an officer applied a carotid choke-hold on Shanahan to control him, Inglewood police have denied witnesses’ claims that officers beat Shanahan with batons and maintained that officers had to use force to control the combative youth.

“If you as a police officer are engaged in a fight or wild confrontation with a person on LSD, to what extent can you protect yourself from a person almost impervious to pain?” Inglewood Police Sgt. Harold Moret asked. He described the chokehold as an “approved method of dealing with extremely dangerous and combative people.”

Moret also raised the possibility that some of the bruises could have been self-induced before police arrived.

Investigations by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the Inglewood Police Department are ongoing, spokesmen said Tuesday.

The Inglewood probe is being hampered because witnesses of the arrest have been contacting the family’s attorney but not the police, Moret said.

Dambacher said the autopsy shows that a carotid chokehold applied by officers was the primary cause of Shanahan’s death. “There are neck injuries on either side of the center of the neck and in the jaw area,” he said.

The autopsy also agrees with a preliminary post-mortem report released last month that said LSD intoxication and multiple injuries were contributing causes to his death.

William Shanahan and Trygstad said internal police documents have downplayed the injuries.

A police report of Shanahan’s death says a doctor at Daniel Freeman Hospital, where Shanahan was taken in the back of a police car, reported little trauma other than some marking on his wrists. The report added that investigating officers who observed the body the next day reported only “a small contusion on his chin and a small contusion on the left side of his forehead.”