Paralyzed Boy’s Family Sues Over Crash : Courts: Irvine couple seek damages from Laguna Beach police, among others. Their car was broadsided by a stolen car that was pursued by a motorcycle officer.

The family of an 8-year-old boy, who was paralyzed in July in a car crash related to a chase involving a Laguna Beach police officer, filed a lawsuit Friday against the Police Department and others connected to the incident.

Charles and Cheryl McGee of Irvine, whose son, Trent, remains paralyzed from the neck down and must use a respirator, filed the lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court seeking unspecified damages.

A spokeswoman for the department declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday.

Trent McGee was injured July 11 while riding in the family’s 1984 Peugeot station wagon with his mother and older sister. A Dana Point man broadsided their car in Irvine after running a red light, according to police reports. The man, John Eric Phelps, 31, was fleeing in a stolen Mercedes-Benz from an off-duty Laguna Beach police motorcycle officer, the reports said.

The chase began on Laguna Canyon Road when the Laguna Beach police officer, Vladimir Anderson, apparently saw the Mercedes speeding, and it ended in the accident near Jeffrey Road and Irvine Center Drive.

Phelps pleaded guilty in July and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

In their lawsuit, the McGees alleged that Anderson, never should have started the chase and was “an imminent hazard . . . to innocent citizens” because he was on a motorcycle with a broken police radio. Although off duty and on the way to Santa Ana to have the radio fixed, Anderson was in uniform at the time.

The lawsuit also names the Dana Point Foreign Car Service, also known as Dana Point Automotive, where Phelps stole the Mercedes. The McGees allege that the dealership contributed to the accident because the keys were left in the Mercedes in a dimly lit car lot.

Also named was Peugeot Motors of America.