Award in Final Dalton Case OKd by Court : Police: City Council must approve $600,000 settlement in 1988 drug raid that saw LAPD trash apartments in South-Central Los Angeles.

A federal court judge on Wednesday approved a $600,000 settlement in the last of a costly series of lawsuits growing out of a 1988 drug raid in which Los Angeles police officers trashed units in two South-Central Los Angeles apartment buildings.

Cheri and Henry Lang, owners of an apartment building at 39th Street and Dalton Avenue, will receive the $600,000 if the agreement is approved by the Los Angeles City Council.

Under the settlement, the city also would pay attorneys fees to lawyer Stephen Yagman and his partner, Marion R. Yagman. Stephen Yagman said they will ask for $2.9 million in fees. The fee determination will be made by U.S. District Court Judge Robert M. Takasugi.

Yagman handled the case until the final phases, when the Langs brought in attorney Robert Rootenberg to negotiate a settlement, sidestepping Yagman, who has a highly contentious relationship with the Police Department and the city attorney’s office.

If the City Council approves the settlement, total damages paid to more than 80 people affected by the raid would exceed $3.8 million. Additionally, the city already has paid $455,000 in attorney’s fees stemming from the incident.

“This case represents the worst instance of out-of-control police destroying property that ever has occurred in the history of Los Angeles,” Yagman said.

Eighty officers participated in the raid on Aug. 1, 1988. The police targeted apartments they said were gang-controlled crack cocaine houses, but less than an ounce of cocaine and fewer than six ounces of marijuana were confiscated.

Several dozen suspected gang members were taken into custody, but only seven were booked and ultimately none were charged with crimes, according to LAPD officials.

But during the 45-minute raid, in which officers used axes and battering rams, the apartments sustained damage ranging from broken walls and stairways to smashed toilets. According to testimony in the 1991 criminal case of four officers, shelves were torn from walls.

A glass table, a television, chairs, dishes, kitchen appliances and wall clocks were broken. Bleach was poured onto clothing and a dining room table was thrown out a window.

Also, the words “Gang Task Force Rules,” were scrawled on a wall outside one of the units.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher A. Darden, who investigated the incident, said during the criminal trial: “They didn’t do a search-and-destroy mission. They did a destroy mission.”

One officer, Charles A. Wilson, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of vandalism. In March, 1991, he was sentenced to two years probation, fined $1,700 and ordered to perform 150 hours of community service.

He testified against three fellow officers in the criminal case. During that trial, there was testimony that Capt. Thomas Elfmont, who planned the operation, gave officers a pre-raid pep talk in which he used the words “leveled” and “uninhabitable” to describe how the apartments should be left.

Elfmont and two other officers--Sgt. Charles Spicer and Officer Todd B. Parrick--were acquitted last June of vandalism charges. Parrick was the lead defendant in the civil case tentatively settled Wednesday.

Jurors in the criminal case said they believed police officers had vandalized the apartments, but said that prosecutors had not proved the three were guilty.

Prosecutor Darden said his case had been stymied by a Police Department “code of silence” that deterred officers from testifying truthfully against one another.

Less than a month later, the blue ribbon Christopher Commission, which was appointed to investigate the LAPD in the wake of officers’ beating of motorist Rodney G. King, criticized the department for having such a code.

After internal hearings, the department determined that 38 officers committed acts of misconduct in the Dalton raid. Of those, 25 were suspended without pay, one resigned, a probationary officer was fired and 11 others received less severe punishment, according to police officials.

Deputy City Atty. David Hotchkiss said Wednesday the property damage was unparalleled for an LAPD raid. However, he said city officials, including top LAPD administrators, had uniformly expressed “condemnation of the conduct” and meted out “appropriate discipline established under the City Charter.”

Police spokesman Cmdr. Robert S. Gil said, “The city and the Police Department have been outrageously generous in our offers to settle this case. . . . We would like to get the case settled and out of the way so we can go on to our normal course of police work.”

Cheri Lang declined comment. Her husband could not be reached.