Long Beach : Retrial Ordered in Former Officer’s Shooting of Driver

A Superior Court judge has ordered a retrial for a former Long Beach police officer charged with shooting and wounding a motorist during a traffic dispute.

Alan B. Ice, 46, of Fountain Valley is expected to go on trial again next month for the Sept. 28, 1991, shooting of Neil Cramer, 37, a Santa Ana carpenter who has recovered from his injuries. Long Beach police officials fired Ice after the shooting.

Jurors in the first trial deadlocked 8 to 4 in favor of convicting Ice. Judge Everett W. Dickey said last week that the jury’s leanings influenced his decision to order a retrial. He set a Dec. 8 retrial date.

A new set of jurors will be asked to decide whether the shooting was intentional, as prosecutors claim, or an accident, as Ice insists.

The shooting occurred after Cramer swerved his camper truck in front of Ice’s Jeep to avoid a boy who had fallen from his bicycle. Ice blew his horn at Cramer and the two men began yelling and exchanged obscene hand gestures.

Ice told jurors he grabbed his weapon because he feared Cramer also was reaching for a weapon. Ice said the gun misfired when his vehicle lurched forward because of a mechanical problem.

Whether Cramer had armed himself with a hammer also became a key issue for jurors, with prosecution witnesses admitting that they gave inconsistent accounts.