Jury in Wrongful-Death Case Is Told of Second Fatal Shooting by Officer

On the opening day of a $5-million, wrongful-death lawsuit case, an attorney disclosed that the police officer accused of unjustifiably gunning down a Garden Grove man who was armed with a toy pistol in 1989 is also under investigation in a 1993 Los Alamitos shooting death that has spawned another $20-million damage suit.

But the officer’s attorney, Bruce D. Praet, said outside court that the actions of his client, Mark Van Holt, should be judged only on the facts that are presented to the jurors in the Garden Grove case, where details of the Los Alamitos shooting cannot be introduced.

In outlining his case to the jurors in opening remarks, Praet said that Van Holt and fellow officer Roger Keyes fired on Dennis Paul Gonzales after Gonzales pointed a realistic-looking gun at Van Holt and refused to follow the officers’ orders.

Kurt Kupferman, the plaintiff’s attorney, told jurors, however, that the two Garden Grove officers didn’t give Gonzales time to respond to their orders before shooting him six times.

The officers were answering a domestic disturbance call on the January night in 1989 when the shooting occurred.

“There was no time for Dennis to react--they just kept shooting,” said Kupferman, who later told jurors that the shooting was “malicious and unnecessary.”

Kupferman said an expert on the proper use of force by police will also testify that the officers overreacted and used excessive force.

Praet told jurors that Keyes opened fire because he feared that his partner, who tripped and had fallen backward, had been shot. Praet also told jurors that Gonzales, who was drunk and had cocaine in his system, had earlier used the toy gun to rob a supermarket.

“This is a guy who beat up his girlfriend, robbed a supermarket, and then pulled a gun on a police officer,” Praet told jurors.

After an investigation by the Garden Grove Police Department and the Orange County district attorney’s office, Praet said the shooting was ruled to have been a justifiable use of deadly force.

Van Holt has since moved to the Los Alamitos Police Department.

Los Angeles lawyer Stephen Yagman said Van Holt is one of two Los Alamitos officers responsible for the Jan. 23 slaying of a 40-year-old truck driver and former Marine gunned down by police in his own kitchen. Los Alamitos police have declined to comment on the shooting pending the outcome of an official investigation, and have declined to identify the officers involved.

Yagman has filed a $20-million civil suit against officials in Los Alamitos on behalf of the family of the slain trucker, Sylvan Randall Byrd. The suit contends that Los Alamitos city officials have “fostered a custom of police brutality.”

Byrd’s relatives and friends say police overreacted, but acknowledge that Byrd came to the door with a handgun when police showed up in response to a neighbor’s complaint about a fight between Byrd and his wife.

His widow, Ellen Byrd, said in an interview that her husband became afraid when he heard people banging on his door, and did not realize until it was too late that it was the police. She claimed that police never identified themselves and said that some of the bullets were fired through the door.

An Orange County Sheriff’s investigator said Tuesday that the Byrd case remains under review.

After the investigation is complete, it will be turned over to the district attorney’s office. Praet would not discuss the case.