Culver City Officers Defend Beating of Motorist : Law enforcement: A police officer testifies she feared that the man would grab her partner’s gun in a struggle.

Culver City police officers, defending themselves in a federal police brutality lawsuit, testified Wednesday that they hit a driver several times because they feared he would grab an officer’s gun and kill them.

Officer Pamela Graves said in court that she struck William Schaub with her baton at least four times on the back and twice on the shoulders as he tussled with another officer. “I thought Mr. Schaub was going to get Officer Schultz’s gun, and kill us, possibly,” she said.

Schaub, 22, has sued Graves and Officer Donald Zimmer, contending that they used excessive force after they tried to pull him over in early 1989. He is also suing the Police Department, the police chief and the city, alleging that the department has an unconstitutional policy of refusing to take citizen complaints of police misconduct if the incident has been described in police reports.

The Culver City Police Department manual states that whenever officers engage in a physical struggle during an arrest, police reports “must contain the specifics of the force used by the officer and the arrestee.” But complaints against personnel “will generally not be taken on an altercation which is adequately described in an arrest report.”

The policy issue is to be heard after the jury trial on the brutality charges. The trial started this week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

“Schaub ran, fled, and (the officers) used necessary force to restrain him,” F. James Feffer, the defendants’ attorney, said. The officers also contend that they believed Schaub had been dealing or possessing drugs.

Robert Mann, Schaub’s lawyer, said “they beat . . . him to punish him for running from them,” and then they “fabricated an excuse for doing so. . . . You got the ‘He’s going for my gun’ story, which is very typical.”

Two defendants, Officers Steven Schultz and Michael Poulin, have been dropped from the suit.

The incident occurred Feb. 20, 1989, when Graves and Schultz spotted Schaub driving out of a motel parking lot. When they tried to stop him for an expired car registration, Schaub said he drove away, fearing that he would be jailed for driving with a suspended license and without insurance.

The officers say that during the chase, they saw Schaub throw a plastic bag out of his car--a claim Schaub disputes. “I thought I was chasing perhaps a felony drug suspect,” Schultz testified.

Officers Poulin and Zimmer joined the chase, which ended when Schaub crashed into a stop sign. Schaub says that he was ordered to step out of his car and surrender, and that the officers approached him from behind, knocked him to the ground with batons, and kicked him in the head.

The officers say Schaub attempted to flee and then fought when they tried to handcuff him. Schultz testified that Schaub grabbed his belt near his gun, so Schultz hit him in the chest with a baton handle.

Zimmer hit Schaub once with his fist, attorney Feffer said.

Graves said: “I heard Officer Schultz yell out, ‘He’s got my gun!’ ” She said she hit Schaub “four times, five times, six times in the back, a couple times on the shoulders. But . . . I was not counting, “ she said.

Officer Schultz, however, testified that he said “Watch my gun” to his colleagues. He said his gun was “in danger,” but it “wasn’t a loose cannon on deck.”

Attorney Mann said he intends to present former Hawthorne police officer Don Jackson as a witness later this week. Jackson, who gained nationwide attention in 1989 with a sting operation aimed at exposing misconduct by the Long Beach police, will talk about proper police procedures, use of batons and “what’s wrong with this picture” in the Schaub case, Mann said.