Claim Filed Over Stun Gun Death

The parents of a 24-year-old psychiatric patient who died six weeks ago after being shocked repeatedly with stun guns have filed multimillion-dollar claims against the Ventura Police Department and the county hospital where their son was a patient.

The wrongful-death claims, each of which seeks $2.5 million in damages, were sent by certified mail late Tuesday to both the city and the county by lawyers representing Clarence and Elviere Johnson of Oxnard.

Their son, Duane J. Johnson, was a cardiac patient at Ventura County Medical Center when he died Feb. 13, shortly after being jolted with stun guns by police officers who were called to subdue him.

The Ventura City Council and the county Board of Supervisors have 45 days to approve or deny the claims. If denied, a lawsuit may be filed in Superior Court.

“When we get it, we will investigate it--more so than the matter already has been investigated. Then we will respond,” City Atty. Peter D. Bulens said. He said most claims against the city are denied.

County Counsel James L. McBride declined to comment until he sees the claim.

The Johnsons’ attorney, Paul Hedlund of Los Angeles, alleges in the claims that Ventura police officers “electrocuted, shocked, battered, restrained, used excessive force” on Johnson, then failed to summon medical assistance for him.

The claims also maintain that lax training and supervision of the officers led to the overuse of the Taser and Nova stun guns. The officers, through both “intentional and negligent” acts, caused Johnson to suffer and then die, they allege.

The county was named as a defendant, according to the claims, because county employees called the police officers to Johnson’s hospital room and allowed them to use stun guns on the patient.

“Prior to his death, he underwent a lot of suffering,” Hedlund said in an interview. “I don’t know how long the police had him tied down and were battering him, but I’m sure that in his condition he perceived it as an extreme event.”

Coroner F. Warren Lovell has not yet determined the official cause of Johnson’s death. An investigation by the district attorney’s office will not be completed until prosecutors receive Lovell’s reports and the studies of doctors and engineers who have analyzed the safety of stun guns, a spokesman said.

Police say that Johnson, who had a history of psychiatric problems, began throwing himself into windows and walls after being told that he would be transferred back to a mental health facility near the hospital. He had been admitted after a near-fatal heart attack two weeks before his death.

Police acknowledge jolting Johnson four times--once with the Nova gun during the initial struggle in his hospital room and three times with the Taser to stop him from grabbing at people and to force him to submit to handcuffing.

Two mental-health workers who witnessed the 45-minute incident have told county investigators that Johnson, a muscular former athlete, was shocked seven to 11 times, including several times after he was tethered face down on a gurney and posed no threat to others, according to a coroner’s report.

Officer Lynn Klamser and Sgt. George Morris, the two officers police say used the stun guns, were cleared of wrongdoing by the department a week after Johnson’s death. It is within department policy for officers to apply stun guns to crime suspects or to mental patients to gain compliance, a police spokesman has said.

Elviere Johnson said in a recent interview that she was suing the police because “they think everyone out there are criminals.”

“My son was a sick fellow,” said Johnson, a native of Jamaica. “He wasn’t on PCP or things like that. He was a patient, and for his life to be snuffed away isn’t right. He wanted to pull out of this and do things right. But he never had a chance. And I tell you, it’s tearing my heart apart.”

Stun guns have been sold since the 1970s as non-lethal alternatives to nightsticks and firearms. But if the Johnsons eventually file a lawsuit, their action will be one of many suits in Southern California courts alleging that peace officers have misused stun guns.

Officers’ use of the weapons in situations such as handcuffing, rather than to end violent confrontations, has become a national issue, according to Wayne Schmidt, executive director of Americans for Effective Law Enforcement in Chicago.

“There’s a big disagreement right now between police chiefs and their lawyers as to whether or not they should use it to gain compliance for handcuffing purposes,” said Schmidt, who conducts seminars on civil liability for peace officers.

A number of brutality lawsuits involving stun guns have ended in settlements by police agencies. For example, the city of Huntington Park paid more than $300,000 in 1988 to settle a suit by a 17-year-old boy who claimed he was tortured by two officers with Nova guns. Both were convicted of felony assault.

In addition, the Los Angeles Police Department in 1989 settled for $100,000 a suit by survivors of a 39-year-old postal worker who died after being shot with Taser darts and choked when he failed to follow police instructions.

In another 1989 settlement, a Bellevue, Wash., man who maintained that he was rendered impotent by a police Nova gun reportedly received $100,000 from the city and $9,000 from manufacturer Nova Technologies Inc. of Austin, Tex.

Crime suspects also have received settlements in the small Northern California cities of Rio Vista and Union City, where plaintiffs said they were beaten and unnecessarily shocked with Nova stun guns after arrest on drunk- driving charges.

Manufacturers of the Taser and Nova stun guns say they have never caused a death or serious injury.

But coroners in Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties have said the Taser has either caused or contributed to the deaths of three people since 1986, two of whom had heart disease.

In addition, use of the Nova guns has been declared a contributing factor in the deaths of at least two people, including a Port Hueneme man who died of heart failure while intoxicated with cocaine in 1987.