Jurors Begin Deliberations in Police Brutality Lawsuit

It was to have been a happy celebration dinner, where the son of an Inglewood shopkeeper introduced his fiancee to old family friends. Everything went smoothly until it was time to leave.

The evening of April 20, 1984, ended in a violent confrontation with police as three of the celebrants were hauled off in handcuffs to the local jail.

Now, more than six years later, James Boedeker, 55; his son, Michael, 30, and their friend, Tony Kemp, 35, have asked a Torrance Superior Court jury to vindicate them by ruling that the actions of Inglewood police officers that night were inexcusably brutal.

The defense attorney for the five police officers named in their suit, however, says the officers simply wanted to arrest the father and son, who they said got into a drunken brawl in a parking lot, and that Kemp interfered. What little force they used was necessary to subdue the belligerent men, he said.

After nearly three weeks of testimony, jurors began deliberating Friday morning on whether the officers were guilty of battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The Boedekers and Kemp sued the city of Inglewood and Officers Charles LeFever, John Knapp, William Thompson and Fred Perlstein and Sgt. George Aguilar. Aguilar was shot to death while pursuing a robbery suspect in 1988.

Although neither the Boedekers nor Kemp suffered permanent injuries, their attorney told jurors during her closing arguments that the incident has shattered their faith in a justice system they once respected.

James Boedeker, owner of an auto parts store next to the restaurant where the group ate dinner that night, “had been in business in Inglewood for 30 years and had always been supportive of the Inglewood police,” Linda Rice said.

Rice said that the confrontation that night stemmed from “a very foolish, but definitely not illegal, thing.”

Irritated that motorcycle Officer Perlstein was staring at his family as they stood talking in the parking lot of Boedeker’s shop after dinner, Michael Boedeker lay down on the pavement and stared back at the officer.

When asked what he was doing, Rice said, Boedeker told his father, “I’m giving him something to look at.”

Perlstein then ordered the group “to go back in the bar where they had come from,” Rice said.

“That’s when Michael Boedeker did another foolish thing,” Rice told jurors. “He said, ‘If you think we’re going back in the bar where we haven’t been, you better get some help to haul us in there.’ ”

Although all three men testified that each had consumed two or three beers during the two-hour dinner, they said they were not drunk.

Perlstein called other officers to the scene.

Rice said Michael Boedeker was handcuffed and placed, unharmed, in the back seat of a squad car. His father, however, was handcuffed, forced to his knees, slapped on the side of the head with a blackjack and tossed into another squad car, she said.

Kemp was thrown to the ground and handcuffed when he asked officers why the Boedekers were being arrested, Rice said.

As Kemp was being placed, handcuffed, in a squad car, an officer slammed Kemp’s head into the side of the car and then followed him into the back seat, hitting him, Rice said.

Kemp used one foot to shove the officer out of the car, an action Rice said led to further abuse. Toward the end of the beating, a sergeant on the scene deliberately ground one foot into Kemp’s face, breaking several of his teeth, she said.

Defense attorney Timothy Walker, however, said the men concocted a story about their arrests.

According to the police report, Perlstein called for backup and moved in to arrest the Boedekers when he saw them rolling in the parking lot, fighting.

Walker said Michael Boedeker caused his father’s injuries during that fight.

Kemp, he said, was handcuffed when he tried to interfere with the Boedekers’ arrests. Officers hit Kemp once or twice to subdue him, Walker said, after he kicked the officer who was getting in the car to escort him to the station and tried to grab another officer’s gun.

“Given what he did, he’s lucky that’s all that happened to him,” Walker said.

“The police weren’t looking to beat up anybody that night and they did not beat up anybody,” Walker said. “Jim Boedeker was injured by Mike Boedeker, and Mr. Kemp was injured when he tried to resist arrest.”

Rice said that because of the cost of a criminal trial, the Boedekers agreed to plead no contest to disturbing the peace infractions. Kemp was charged with felony assault on a police officer, but he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge for similar reasons.