Long Beach Man Shot by Officer Gets $6.75 Million

A Superior Court jury Friday awarded $6.75 million in damages to a Long Beach landlord who was accidentally shot by a police officer, the largest liability judgment ever leveled against the city.

In his lawsuit, Vanmalibhai Galal alleged that police investigators tried to cover up the Jan. 19, 1988, shooting by Officer Gregory Allison.

“The jury had to send a message not just to this police department, but to others,” said John Taylor, one of Galal’s attorneys.

City officials were stunned to learn of the judgment late Friday and said they will seek a new trial.

“It’s an outrageous verdict,” said Assistant City Atty. Robert E. Shannon, who denied that there was any cover-up. “The amount is totally disproportionate to the injury.”

Galal, then 60, was shot in the abdomen as he stepped onto the porch of his apartment. In a series of operations, his gallbladder and part of his liver were removed.

Officer Allison later said he mistook Galal for a suspect he was chasing. But Galal’s son, Mahesh, said that a police investigator told him shortly after the incident that his father was shot by a robber.

According to Galal’s attorneys, police investigators tried to cover up the shooting at first by attempting to frame another man, a convicted robber, and later by moving a chrome-plated dustpan near the victim so they could argue that the officer mistook it for a gun.

During the trial, police investigators gave different accounts of where the dustpan was found, and one detective testified that Galal was holding cleaning fluid instead.

Galal’s attorneys pointed to a pattern of blaming “bright, shiny objects” for shootings by Long Beach officers.

Galal’s attorneys credited the jury award in part to testimony by former Long Beach Police Chief Lawrence L. Binkley, who told jurors that the department lacked training and that he was often prevented from disciplining officers. It was the second time since his firing in January that Binkley has testified in a lawsuit against the city.

Allison, once named a “top cop” by Binkley, could not be reached for comment.

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