3 on Council Want Gates to Pay Lawsuit Damages : Courts: Yaroslavsky, Galanter and Ridley-Thomas back jury’s wishes that no taxpayer money be used to pay a $20,000 penalty for police killings in Sunland.

Balking at the city’s traditional payment of legal damages for police officers, three City Council members said Tuesday that taxpayers should not have to pay a $20,000 penalty assessed on Police Chief Daryl F. Gates in a civil rights suit over the police killing of three robbers in Sunland.

Councilmen Zev Yaroslavsky and Mark Ridley-Thomas said Gates should pay the punitive damages out of his own pocket to send a message through the department and to the next police chief that excessive force will not be tolerated. Councilwoman Ruth Galanter said she also has long been concerned about the city’s liability for police misconduct and felt taxpayers should be spared further costs.

“I’ve had enough,” Yaroslavsky said. “We are paying over $20 million this year in judgments and settlements where we’ve had officers engaged in excessive uses of force. . . . I don’t see why my hard-earned money should be spent to bail him out.”

Gates, who last year made $168,794, condemned the verdict and damages as sending a chilling message to officers in the field and police chiefs who can be held responsible for every action every officer takes.

“The real peril is not guns out there or any of that,” Gates said. “People who sit on juries are killing effective policing in this city. . . . Police chiefs cannot afford to allow officers to make judgments in the field when police chiefs cannot be there 24 hours a day. The chief is going to have to say, ‘Just don’t do it. Don’t get involved. Don’t engage.’ ”

In reaching their verdict Monday, jurors said they did not want taxpayers to foot the bill and felt that Gates should be held responsible for his officers’ actions. The 10-juror panel assessed $20,505 in damages against Gates personally and the balance of its $44,042 award against the nine officers in the Special Investigation Section involved in the Feb. 12, 1990, shooting outside a Sunland McDonald’s.

“I think the fact that the jury took the specific action of saying this isn’t the city’s fault is encouragement for the position that the city should not pay it,” Galanter said.

Ridley-Thomas agreed, saying: “The jurors are sending us a clear message, it seems to me, and that’s not to waste taxpayers money.”

Yaroslavsky, who heads the budget committee that will take up the damage bill before it goes to the full council, said the decision should be made on a case-by-case basis, depending on “what extent they were following orders from above or were themselves negligent.”

The verdict’s immediate effect on the 21-officer SIS unit was unclear. Gates said he was very seriously reviewing the future of the unit and the chairman of the Police Commission, Stanley Sheinbaum, said the commission may seek “outside professional judgment” before responding to the verdict.

Capt. Randy Mancini, the unit’s supervisor, said the SIS was back in operation Tuesday after the long layoff caused by the trial, which required the attendance of the entire unit each day. He said the jury’s verdict and criticisms of SIS tactics will be evaluated in terms of whether methods used by the squad should change. “We will evaluate our tactics--we always do,” he said.

Further blurring the picture was the department-wide reorganization that is expected once a new chief assumes command. Three of the six finalists for police chief reached Tuesday--Assistant Chief David Dotson and Deputy Chiefs Mark Kroeker and Bernard Parks--said they thought the SIS and other sections of the department should be constantly evaluated. But they declined to discuss specific recommendations they might have for the SIS squad.

Police Commissioners Michael Yamaki and Ann Reiss Lane said it would be up to the new chief to change the SIS. But they said the commission was also in the process of reviewing all specialized units within the Police Department in light of anticipated budget cuts.

The judgment was awarded after a four-month trial of a lawsuit contending that the SIS officers used excessive force when they fired 35 times at four robbers after a holdup at a McDonald’s on Foothill Boulevard. The lawsuit named Gates as a defendant, contending that he condoned the excessive force used by his officers and was ultimately responsible for it.

Despite Yaroslavsky’s objection and the jury’s specific request that Gates and the officers pay the damages out of their paychecks, Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent, who defended Gates and the officers in the trial, said he believes the city should pay the damages.

“The officers did a good job,” Vincent said. “They responded in the line of duty and in a proper way. The outcome was unfortunate.”

Councilwoman Joan Milke-Flores also defended the police, saying in a prepared statement that the jury’s verdict “sends the wrong message to the people of our city and the officers who are hired to protect them.”

Stephen Yagman, the attorney who won the damages for the surviving robber and the families of the three men killed, said he will attempt to block any move by the council to have the city foot the bill.

“We will seek a court order prohibiting that,” Yagman said. “We will do everything legally possible to make sure the taxpayers are not punished for the atrocious conduct of Daryl Gates.”

Yagman also said he is preparing another suit against the SIS on behalf of the son of one of the men killed in the same shooting.

Other council members declined comment on the SIS verdict or could not be reached.

The council members’ objections to paying punitive damages for Gates is unusual and could set a precedent. The council has routinely decided in the past to pick up the bill for such damages assessed by juries against police personnel. In January, the council agreed to put up a $50,000 bond to pay punitive damages assessed against an SIS officer who drove his car over the leg of a criminal suspect.

Yaroslavsky said the council “has never before failed to bail an employee out, at least in my memory. We’ve been criticized for that, I think in some cases rightly.

“It seems to me the jury made a very calculated decision. They are saying the policy is set at the top and the person at the top has been personally negligent. . . .

“I know of no other way to get this department’s attention. Every week I’m sitting in that committee overseeing the payment of $300,000 here, $100,000 there, $1.5 million here. . . . The issue is not just for this chief. I want the next chief to know he’s going to be held accountable, and we need to make that unmistakably clear.”

He said the finance committee could hear testimony from the officers and Gates, or simply get transcripts and evidence from the jury trial to determine individual culpability.

Times staff writers Rich Connell and Louis Sahagun contributed to this report.