Riot Victim Files $10-Million Claim, Alleges Authorities Not Prepared : Riot aftermath: A man who was shot and whose uncle was killed accuses four government entities. A Long Beach official says the city is immune from the action.

A Long Beach man who was shot during the riots and saw his uncle killed a few feet away has filed a $10-million claim against the cities of Long Beach and Los Angeles, Los Angeles County and the state of California, saying officials failed to adequately prepare for the disturbances.

In his claim, Scott Coleman accused authorities of not being prepared for the riots that led to a mob attacking him and his uncle, Matthew Haines, as they rode a motorcycle near Martin Luther King Jr. Park on April 30.

Officials failed to plan for the civil disturbances, enact a state of emergency quickly enough, call the National Guard “in a timely manner” or have enough police and firefighters available, according to the claim.

Haines’ family filed an identical claim. Both claims also say local authorities had warning to prepare for the disturbances in Long Beach because riots erupted the day before in Los Angeles after the not-guilty verdicts of four police officers accused of beating Rodney G. King.

“It was foreseeable, especially knowing the violence in Los Angeles,” said Dana D. Denton, an attorney for Coleman and Haines’ family. “There should have been steps taken. There’s a duty that comes from notice.”

Robert E. Shannon, assistant city attorney for Long Beach, said officials plan to deny the claim, which Denton said he would then file as a lawsuit. Shannon said the city is not responsible for the attack on Haines and Coleman because “there is an immunity in the government code for failure to provide police protection.”

The day the disturbances broke out, Coleman and Haines, who live near the Belmont Heights neighborhood, had set off to help two friends move from an area targeted by rioters. Radio and television news accounts were reporting violence in Compton and Los Angeles, but not Long Beach, although some violence had broken out earlier in the day and the city manager declared a state of emergency around 6:30 p.m.

As Coleman and Haines drove by Lemon Avenue and 19th Street around 6:55 p.m., they were surrounded by a mob of about 15 men. Haines, a 32-year-old mechanic at Long Beach Toyota, was killed by a bullet to the head. Coleman--Haines’ nephew, roommate and best friend--was shot three times in the arm.

Denton argued that Long Beach police knew that more than 200 suspected gang members had gathered at Martin Luther King Jr. Park. “They had been at a park all day long getting drunk. . . . Nobody did anything to stop this,” Denton said.

Long Beach police have said the seven suspected gang members arrested in the attack on Coleman and Haines were among those gathered at the park that day. Some of the gang members also had beaten a young couple driving with a baby near the area where the two Long Beach men were attacked, police said.

Long Beach Police Chief William C. Ellis said that overall, police responded “in an adequate fashion.”

Ellis said that the violence in Long Beach took him by surprise. “We knew there were significant problems in Los Angeles, and we were hoping those problems would stay in those locations. But as you saw, they spilled all over the country.”

On the day the two men were attacked, with the number of fires and looters increasing, Ellis ordered all officers, including those on vacation, to work 12-hour shifts. “We deployed our resources appropriately,” he said.