Parents Prepare Stun Gun Death Suit : Ventura: Duane J. Johnson died soon after being jolted with the weapons by police officers called to the county hospital to subdue him.

The parents of a 24-year-old psychiatric patient who died in February after being shocked repeatedly with stun guns are expected to file a wrongful-death lawsuit today against the Ventura Police Department and the county hospital where their son was a patient.

The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, was completed Friday and will be filed today in Ventura Superior Court, said lawyers representing Clarence and Elviere Johnson of Oxnard.

Their son, Duane J. Johnson, died Feb. 13 at Ventura County Medical Center shortly after being jolted with stun guns by police officers who were called to the hospital to subdue him. Johnson had been admitted to the hospital two weeks earlier because of a severe heart problem.

The Ventura City Council and the County Board of Supervisors have each denied $2.5-million legal claims that the Johnsons filed in March. Under the law, such claims must be filed before a lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that Ventura police officers, principally Sgt. George Morris, unnecessarily shocked Johnson five to 12 times with 50,000-volt stun guns while he was restrained and was no threat to them. Johnson was stunned at least once by Morris to demonstrate the effects of the electric weapon, it says.

The suit also maintains that lax training and supervision of the officers led to overuse of stun guns. The officers, through intentional and negligent acts, caused Johnson to suffer and die, the suit alleges.

The county was named as a defendant, according to the suit, because hospital employees called the police officers to Johnson’s room and allowed them to use stun guns on the patient. Medical workers also failed to tell the police that Johnson had nearly died when his heart failed two weeks before the incident, the suit said.

The Johnsons’ attorney, John P. Coale of Los Angeles, said he will seek an award “sufficient to deter this kind of conduct in the future.”

“If the perpetrator of this murderous conduct had not been a police officer, he would be behind bars today,” Coale said in a statement.

In response, Ventura City Atty. Peter D. Bulens said: “The city’s investigation of the matter indicated that the officer acted properly within policies of the department and appropriately under the circumstances. Obviously, the death of Mr. Johnson was unfortunate and not anticipated.”

County Counsel James L. McBride declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday, as did representatives of the Ventura Police Department.

The district attorney’s office concluded in August that Morris had used “inappropriate and unjustified” force on Johnson by continuing to apply the stun gun to him even after he was no longer a threat.

Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges, however. Manslaughter could not be proved because the precise cause of Johnson’s death is unknown, they said, citing the opinion of a medical consultant who is considered an expert on stun guns.

Prosecutors also reported that the consensus of witnesses “was that, given the situation presented to the officers and their lack of knowledge of Duane Johnson’s background . . . the police acted reasonably and in good faith.”

Johnson, a muscular former athlete, died at the end of a 45-minute incident that began when he threw himself into windows and walls to protest a transfer back to a mental hospital.

Officers first shocked him during a scuffle in his hospital room, then to stop him from grabbing at people and door frames while tethered face down to a gurney and finally to get him to submit to handcuffing. He died within minutes of the final application.

County Coroner F. Warren Lovell concluded that Johnson’s death was caused by jolts from the stun guns, violent exertion and heart disease.

Lovell also criticized Morris for using his stun gun “like a cattle prod” to force Johnson to comply with officers’ instructions when he was tethered face down to the gurney.

A few days after the incident, the Police Department found that Morris and another officer who shocked Johnson once had acted within policy.

But after a second controversial stun-gun incident June 23, in which an epileptic driver was shocked nine times while still groggy from an epileptic seizure, Police Chief Richard F. Thomas prohibited using the weapons merely as a way to get suspects to comply with orders.

The current standard still allows use of the electric guns if any injuries to officers or the public are a possibility. The district attorney has recommended that the guns be used only to prevent serious injury or death.

In the second stun-gun case, attorneys for the epileptic driver, former Ventura disc jockey Donn Christensen Jr., said they are attempting to negotiate a settlement with the city of Ventura.