NEWPORT BEACH : Offer Made to Man Wounded by Police

A Liberian immigrant who was wounded by a police officer’s shotgun blast is being offered $750,000 to $1.5 million to drop his lawsuit against the city, lawyers involved with the case said Monday.

The proposed settlement comes as the victim’s lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial next Monday in Orange County Superior Court.

“The offer has been on the table for about 45 to 60 days,” said Newport Beach City Atty. Robert Burnham, who indicated that the city’s offer is “in the range of $750,000.” An attorney for the victim, Sundaga Bryant, disagreed, saying the offer is worth $1.5 million.

The shooting occurred during the Labor Day weekend nearly two years ago. Bryant was standing on the beach near the Balboa Pier with his wife, Marlene, about 3 a.m. on Sept. 4, 1988, when he was shot by Police Officer Derek Duncan. Duncan and other officers had responded to a report that a man in the area was carrying a sawed-off shotgun.

City officials concede that Bryant, now 27, was not armed--he had only a radio slung over his right shoulder as he stood with his wife. The shotgun pellets that sliced through Bryant have left him with a “totally useless” left arm and “very restricted movement in his right arm,” according to one of his lawyers, Christian W. Keena of Irvine. Bryant also has had surgery to remove a damaged colon.

Keena said that Bryant, who once played on the Liberian national soccer team, is now unable to provide adequately for his family of four children.

“He worked 2 1/2 jobs,” Keena said of Bryant, who now lives in the San Bernardino County town of Rialto. “He was a male nurse, he drove a cab and he cleaned offices at night. Now he’s reduced to a point where he can’t even pick up a cereal bowl.”

Burnham, the city attorney, conceded that the shooting was a mistake. The calls to police warning of the sawed-off shotgun resulted in the detention nearby, at nearly the same time, of a 14-year-old who was carrying a pellet gun.

Keena said the exact timing of when the 14-year-old was detained is important because that development may have been broadcast over the frequency monitored by portable police radios, including the equipment issued to Officer Duncan. Keena said the 14-year-old was stopped “several minutes” before the shooting.

Jim Potepan, a private attorney retained by the Newport Beach, declined to comment on when the teen-ager was detained or whether that development was broadcast on a frequency that Duncan could have received.

Regardless, Burnham said he is confident that a jury would be convinced that Duncan, acting on what he knew at the hour of the shooting, did not perform negligently.

Duncan was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing last February by the Orange County district attorney’s office. Sgt. Andy Gonis, a spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department, said Monday that Duncan has been restored to “patrol, full duty.”