Man Shot by Deputy Gets $510,000

A jury awarded $510,000 Friday to a former tow truck driver from Sylmar who was shot and critically wounded in an altercation with an off-duty Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who chased the tow truck after he saw it collide with a car and fail to stop.

The judgment, announced in San Fernando Superior Court after six days of deliberation, was reduced from $850,000 because jurors determined that the tow truck driver--John Gibbons, 24, of Sylmar--was partly responsible. Jurors ordered Los Angeles County and the deputy, David Rawson, each to pay Gibbons $255,000, said Gibbons’ attorney, Richard E. Eldred.

An attorney who represented the deputy and the county could not be reached for comment Friday evening.

The December, 1984, shooting in Sylmar left Gibbons without his spleen and left kidney, requiring him to take antibiotics for the rest of his life to fight infections, Eldred said.

Los Angeles police said after the shooting that Rawson chased Gibbons after seeing him flee the scene of a minor accident at the northbound Polk Street off-ramp of the Foothill Freeway. Police were unable to locate the driver of the second vehicle involved in the accident.

Police said Gibbons stopped the truck on Foothill Boulevard, got out and walked toward Rawson, who police said drew a .38-caliber revolver and identified himself as a sheriff’s deputy. Gibbons struggled with Rawson over the gun, which discharged once, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said at the time.

But Eldred said that Gibbons did not try to grab the gun and that Rawson identified himself as a sheriff’s deputy only after the shooting.

Eldred said Rawson, who was assigned to the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic, should have called the California Highway Patrol to report the accident instead of trying to chase the driver. Gibbons worked for a company that had a towing contract with the CHP and could have been easily identified by asking company officials who were working that evening, Eldred said.