Officer Who Stunned Epileptic Is Suspended : Ventura: The driver who was shocked 9 times with a stun gun calls the penalty ‘a slap on the wrist.’

Rejecting a recommendation of dismissal, Ventura Police Chief Richard F. Thomas has suspended a veteran motorcycle officer for one month for using excessive force when he shocked an epileptic driver with a stun gun in June, The Times has learned.

Thomas decided to suspend Officer Steven Mosconi--rather than fire him, as recommended by his immediate superiors--after a lengthy meeting with the officer late Tuesday, sources said Wednesday.

The suspension of 20 workdays without pay is the maximum punishment allowed by the city short of dismissal, according to city personnel rules.

Lt. Pat Rooney, Police Department spokesman, confirmed that Thomas had decided not to fire Mosconi. He would not comment further on the officer’s punishment.

Rooney said Mosconi violated department policy when he repeatedly jolted a 26-year-old Ventura man with a stun gun after the driver suffered a seizure and caused a minor auto accident on June 23.

Mosconi, a 14-year veteran, was suspended more than two weeks ago and is expected to return to duty this month, sources said. Rooney would not say if the officer will be allowed to resume his duties as a traffic patrolman.

Donn Christensen Jr., a former Ventura disc jockey whom Mosconi acknowledges shocking up to nine times with a 50,000-volt stun gun, criticized Thomas’ decision not to fire the officer.

“To some people this might appear to be a stiff penalty,” Christensen said. “But I think it’s a slap on the wrist. I think they’re covering their backside. I suppose it’s a natural instinct, but it’s not the right thing to do.”

Christensen said the decision completes “a whitewash” of the incident by local government agencies.

The district attorney declined to file criminal assault charges against Mosconi two weeks ago, saying that the officer committed “no provable violation of criminal law.”

“If a citizen on the street had walked up and zapped me 10 times with a stun gun, he’d be in jail,” Christensen said. “So why should Officer Mosconi be above the law if they’re not working to cover this up?”

Christensen, who says he now has dizzy spells, nightmares and has been diagnosed as suffering from stress related to the incident, has filed a $2-million legal claim against Ventura. Settlement negotiations are under way, said his attorney, Sanford Gage.

The FBI is investigating the incident for possible civil rights violations.

The Police Department informed Mosconi of its intention to fire him in a letter last week but granted him a hearing with Thomas, as required by state law, sources said.

In the letter, the officer was charged with the use of excessive and unreasonable force and with detaining Christensen at the scene without good cause, sources said.

While Mosconi’s suspension of 20 workdays matches the maximum allowed by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department without a dismissal action, it is far less than allowed by some law enforcement agencies. For example, the Los Angeles Police Department may suspend officers for six months without dismissing them.

While Christensen was dismayed by the police chief’s decision, the officer’s attorney said his client has been treated harshly partly because of a controversy about department stun-gun policy that began to build in February, when a psychiatric patient died after being shocked by Ventura police.

“I think the press the department has gotten recently has not been beneficial to Mr. Mosconi’s cause in this case,” lawyer William J. Hadden said. “This department is not used to allegations of brutality.”

Of Mosconi, Hadden added: “This guy’s got 14 years, and he doesn’t have any significant discipline. If you talk to guys in the department, they’ll say he’s the last guy they’d think of as being brutal.”

Mosconi acknowledged in an incident report that he had shocked Christensen--who was still groggy from a seizure--up to nine times when he refused to hand over the keys to his truck and step out.

Witnesses interviewed by The Times said Mosconi had shocked Christensen not only to get him to step out of his truck but at least twice after Christensen was standing passively beside the vehicle.

Christensen was handcuffed and left on the sidewalk for nearly an hour before being taken to a hospital for an examination. He was released from the hospital without being charged.

One witness said the officer was berserk while taking Christensen into custody. Another said Mosconi had cursed and threatened Christensen. A third said the officer had called him a liar.

Hadden, however, said many other witnesses told police investigators that Mosconi was not angry nor abusive.

While Mosconi was told by a paramedic that Christensen had suffered a seizure, the officer’s experience convinced him that the driver might be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, Hadden said.

“He has very limited experience with epileptics, but from what he recalled, he did not expect to be encountered by a belligerent epileptic,” Hadden said. “Steve is adamant about never gratuitously using the stun gun. Before each application, he asked the guy for his keys. And the guy waved his fist.”

Christensen has said the first thing he remembered of the incident is Mosconi grabbing his arm, yelling at him and shocking him under an arm with a stun gun. Experts on epilepsy say it takes many minutes and sometimes hours for people to clear their heads after seizures.

Hadden said Mosconi kept his job because Christensen’s brutality complaint was the first filed against him and because evidence indicated that the officer believed he was acting within department policy.

Ventura police policy at the time of the incident allowed officers to use stun guns to shock crime suspects into complying with orders, which is what Mosconi was trying to do, Hadden said.

“The officers on the street are just going to take what’s given to them,” Hadden said, “and they were told this is a totally non-lethal use of force. The manufacturers’ materials say you can zap some guy with a pacemaker under water and he’ll be fine.”

Christensen’s refusal to surrender his keys created the potential for him to drive away from the scene and endanger the public, Hadden said.

The furor sparked by the incident prompted Thomas to tighten department policy July 5, restricting the use of stun guns to situations where crime suspects pose a danger to officers or the public.

The Christensen incident followed by four months the death of mental patient Duane Johnson, 24, of Oxnard.

Johnson, who also had heart disease, died in February after Ventura police shocked him repeatedly with stun guns while he was tethered to a hospital gurney. The county coroner found the stun gun--a Taser weapon in that case--to be one of three primary causes of the death.