Verdict in Brutality Case Upheld : Law: U.S. Supreme Court’s decision means city must pay $890,000 to a fleeing kidnaping suspect whose ankle was fractured when an LAPD squad car ran over it. A deputy city attorney calls the ruling ‘distressing.’

The Supreme Court, dismissing a final appeal in a Los Angeles police brutality case, said the city must pay $890,000 in damages to a fleeing suspect who was run over by a police squad car five years ago.

In upholding the jury verdict, a federal appeals court in California said officers may not use “deadly force” to stop a fleeing suspect if “more reasonable alternatives” are available.

In his appeal to the high court, Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn said this ruling allows jurors to second-guess police officers who are compelled to make split-second decisions when chasing a suspect.

But an attorney for the suspect, Henry Bradford, said the lower courts had applied the law properly and concluded correctly that a Los Angeles police detective did not need to run over Bradford’s leg to capture him.

Without comment, the justices said they would not review the ruling in the case Los Angeles vs. Bradford, 94-70.

The huge verdict had surprised city attorneys in 1991 because Bradford had admitted that he was involved in a plot to kidnap a Ladera Heights woman and her young son and to demand a ransom of cash and cocaine. Bradford said his job in the plot was to pick up the ransom money, and he later served a year in prison for his actions.

Despite that admission, jurors in Los Angeles voted to give the then 37-year-old hairdresser $850,000 to compensate him for his injuries and they tacked on another $40,000 to punish the officer. However, lawyers noted that the trial took place in August, 1991, five months after Los Angeles Police Department officers were videotaped beating motorist Rodney G. King.

“This was a very strange case and certainly a distressing result for the city,” said Katherine J. Hamilton, a deputy city attorney who worked on the appeal.

But Barrett Litt, an attorney who represented Bradford, said the evidence of police brutality “had to be pretty compelling for a federal court jury to unanimously decide this person (a criminal) was entitled to compensation.”

The case began the evening of March 14, 1989, when members of the LAPD’s Special Investigations Section staked out an area along the Harbor Freeway. Earlier that day, kidnapers had abducted Sharon Landford and her son from their home and had phoned the woman’s mother demanding ransom. They threatened to kill their hostages if the ransom was not delivered.

The money was to be dropped over the side of the freeway near Gage Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles. The LAPD officers were lying in wait nearby.

When Bradford emerged from a car and picked up one of the ransom packages, an officer ordered him to freeze and radioed a call to other officers. Bradford began running, and Detective Michael Sirk accelerated his squad car around a corner and blocked his escape. Sirk again told Bradford to halt, but when he fled, the officer “deliberately drove the police car into Bradford,” the appeals court said.

The suspect was knocked to the ground, and the car ran over his left ankle and fractured it. By the time of trial two years later, Bradford could walk, aided by a cane.

In the past, the Supreme Court has said police can use deadly force only if it is necessary to prevent the escape of a dangerous suspect.

During the trial, lawyers for Bradford argued that police had surrounded the area, so it was not necessary to use such force to stop the fleeing man.

In affirming the jury’s verdict, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said “there was substantial evidence . . . for the jury to conclude that Detective Sirk’s use of a car as a weapon was unnecessary because Sirk had more reasonable alternatives.”