Negligence Suit Dismissed in Slaying of 2 Guards at Universal

A state district judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that negligence by police officers in New Mexico led to the 1988 shooting deaths of two Universal Studio guards.

On Dec. 1, 1988, Nathan Trupp shot guards Armando Torres, 18, of Los Angeles and Jeren Beeks, 27, of La Crescenta, two days after he allegedly killed three people in an Albuquerque bagel shop.

Trupp was found innocent by reason of insanity and committed to a California state mental hospital. Authorities in New Mexico did not pursue prosecution after Trupp was ordered institutionalized in California.

State District Judge Gerard Thomson of Albuquerque said in a Feb. 27 letter to attorneys that he was granting motions by the city of Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed last Nov. 29--exactly two years after the bagel shop shootings--by Esperio Torres and John Beeks, the fathers of the slain guards. It alleged negligence in a series of events in which tips linking Trupp to the bagel shop killings were delayed in reaching the proper police officers.

Trupp left Albuquerque on a bus for Los Angeles a day after the shootings and before Albuquerque police could apprehend him.

The city and state based their dismissal motions on legal arguments that the series of events was not foreseeable and therefore the defendants could not be held liable.

Attorney Arthur Solon said Torres and Beeks plan to appeal.

Solon said police in New Mexico have a duty to protect people anywhere from a psychotic killer. He said he believes the law allows such an extension of police duty.

Jeff Dempsey, an attorney with the state Risk Management Division, said he was satisfied with Thomson’s decision.

“I really don’t think the taxpayers of this state should put up the cost of having to defend a claim based on the allegation that our police officers could have done something more than they did and that resulted in a killing in California,” he said.

The lawsuit named as defendants the state, the Department of Public Safety, DPS agent Robert VanderHee, the Albuquerque Police Department, former police Chief Sam Baca and Detective Ruth Lowe.