$1.2 Million for Man Not Told of Danger : Lawsuits: Council panel urges settlement award for a former theater manager who was a witness in a robbery case. The man was shot after police failed to warn him of a death threat.

A Los Angeles City Council committee recommended a $1.2-million award Tuesday for a North Hollywood theater manager who was shot after police learned about threats against the man but failed to alert him to the danger.

The city’s Budget and Finance Committee voted unanimously to award the settlement to George Carpenter, 45, who now lives in Ohio and is recovering from four gunshot wounds that left him with facial nerve damage and other physical and psychological injuries.

“This is a horrendous story and a horrendous case,” Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee, said after voting for the settlement.

Carpenter witnessed a robbery at his theater in 1984 and was expected to testify against the suspect. Police had assured Carpenter that he was in no danger, but they later learned that the suspect had tried to solicit a contract hit on him. However, police did not relay that information to Carpenter.

Last year, the Second District Court of Appeals found the city liable for Carpenter’s injuries and in the process gave police officials more responsibility for warning witnesses about threats they face for testifying in criminal cases.

Following the vote on Carpenter’s settlement, Yaroslavsky instructed the Los Angeles Police Department to draft a report within 60 days outlining the steps the department takes to notify potential witnesses about such threats.

Yaroslavsky also expressed concern that six months remain in the fiscal year and nearly 80% of the city’s $37-million liability fund has been spent. Only $8 million remains. “This is modestly alarming,” he said.

Carpenter’s troubles began in October, 1984, when Daniel S. Jenkins robbed him at gunpoint at the United Artists movie theater that he managed.

On July 4, 1985, Carpenter was shot in the face, stomach and legs as he sat in a bar next to the theater.

Three months later, on Halloween night, Los Angeles Police Detective Thomas C. Williams was shot and killed in an ambush outside a Canoga Park church school just a few hours after testifying against Jenkins in his robbery and assault trial.

In 1988, Jenkins was convicted of the shooting death of Williams and the attempted murder of Carpenter and is on death row.

A police investigation into Williams’ murder determined that three months before Carpenter was shot, two officers had interviewed an informant in the Los Angeles County Jail who told them that Jenkins had been soliciting a contract hit on Carpenter, according to a city attorney’s report.

Investigators passed the information on to an officer in the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division, the report said, but the warning was never passed on to Williams or Carpenter. The North Hollywood officer has denied receiving the warning, according to the report.

The appellate court found that the Police Department had a special obligation to notify Carpenter of the contract hit because Williams had previously told Carpenter that he was in no danger from Jenkins.

“We conclude that a witness in a criminal prosecution, who had been assured that the defendant posed no real danger to him, enjoyed a special relationship with the city through its police department, such that the city owed the appellant a duty of care,” according to the court ruling.

Senior Assistant City Atty. Thomas C. Hokinson said that the court ruling and the budget committee’s recommendation to award Carpenter the settlement do not mean that police officers are now always obligated to notify witnesses of perceived threats.

But when police assure a criminal witness that there is no danger and then learn of a threat, Hokinson said, they must relay that threat to the witness.