Santa Ana Gunshot Victim Sues Off-Duty Police Officer : Courts: Two criminal trials failed to convict the Long Beach policeman. The civil suit also names the city of Long Beach in connection with the 1991 wounding.

SANTA ANA — A man shot by an off-duty Long Beach police officer in a 1991 traffic dispute sued the reinstated officer Wednesday, along with the city of Long Beach.

Alan B. Ice, 47, was tried twice in Orange County Superior Court for shooting into a nearby camper driven by Neil Lewis Cramer, a 37-year-old Santa Ana carpenter, in Fountain Valley. Cramer was wounded in the chest.

One jury deadlocked 8-4 for conviction and the other split 6-6. After the second deadlock, prosecutors dropped charges.

Other plaintiffs include Cramer’s 12-year-old daughter, Autumn M. Cramer, and his girlfriend, Elaine E. Lara, both of whom were riding in the camper.

In the suit, the three charged that Ice, carrying a handgun issued by the Long Beach Police Department, shot Neil Cramer and then chased him at high speed, “intentionally and with the apparent ability to inflict further bodily harm.”

At his two criminal trials, Ice’s attorneys argued that the shooting was either accidental or coincidental.

John D. Barnett told jurors that during a verbal confrontation with Cramer, Ice fired accidentally when his vehicle surged forward and, at the same time, his defective driver’s seat suddenly rocked back.

“The car did surge,” Barnett said. “The seat did rock.”

Ice, the criminal attorney acknowledged, may have been negligent in reaching for the gun and handling it.

Ice’s civil attorneys could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

In a civil trial, where jurors are required to decide on the basis of a “preponderance of evidence,” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” only nine of 12 jurors must agree on a verdict.

Cramer’s attorney, Dennis F. Minna, said it was ludicrous to think that “an officer with Mr. Ice’s long training and experience” would not have known how to safely handle his weapon.

Jurors would have to believe that, in addition to the surge of the vehicle and the rocking seat, that Ice’s gun hand coincidentally lined up with Cramer’s chest.

“I don’t see how any jury can put all those coincidences together and not come to a conclusion that Mr. Ice intentionally shot at Mr. Cramer,” Minna said. “And if they don’t believe he intentionally shot him, they must obviously believe that, at a minimum, he was grossly negligent.”