Man Says Police Shot Him After He Dropped His Gun

A Tujunga man, who was shot seven times by Los Angeles police officers during a drug raid at his home, told a San Fernando Superior Court jury Tuesday that he had already dropped his pistol when the officers shot him in the back repeatedly as he lay on the floor.

“I remember asking ‘why?’ at least three times between the rounds,” John Gersboll told jurors.

Gersboll, 40, is on trial for assault with a firearm on a police officer and illegal weapons possession stemming from a raid at Gersboll’s home in the 9900 block of Tujunga Canyon Road on Jan. 23, 1990.

His wife, Samantha, 45, is also being tried for possession of an illegal weapon.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Sidney Trapp said officers went to the Gersboll home about 11 p.m. with a search warrant issued after they received an anonymous tip that the couple were dealing in drugs.

Officers knocked loudly on the door and announced themselves as police officers, Trapp said. But upon receiving no answer after several seconds and hearing scuffling inside, the officers entered the house with a hand-held battering ram. Narcotics officers Larry Voelker, 43, and John Nila, 42, shot Gersboll after he pointed a gun at them and refused to drop the weapon after being ordered to do so, Trapp said.

Defense attorneys Malcolm Guleserian and Arthur C. Wynn maintain that the officers never identified themselves, and that the Gersbolls are the victims of police brutality.

Gersboll testified Tuesday that he armed himself with a .44 magnum after he heard “what sounded like a bunch of madmen at my front door.”

Gersboll said the voices were “unintelligible.”

“I hollered at the top of my lungs ‘Who is it? Who the hell is it?”’ Gersboll testified.

After officers broke through the door, Gersboll said, he saw “a badge coming at me” and realized the men were police officers.

“I was very happy it was the police,” he said, adding that at first he thought he and his wife were being attacked.

Gersboll, who is a gunsmith, said his home had been burglarized twice and that his mother had been the victim of a residential robbery.

According to court records, no drugs were found in the house.

Trapp said scales and plastic bags were found. The defense has said the scales and bags were part of Gersboll’s equipment for reloading ammunition.

Testimony is expected to continue today.