Jury Awards Robber an Additional $80,000

A fleeing home-invasion robber who was shot by Riverside police officers has been awarded an additional $80,000 by the same federal jury that previously awarded him more than $100,000 after finding his civil rights had been violated.

Brian Forrett is serving a 32-year prison sentence for the 1990 burglary of a Riverside home in which he tied up three victims and shot one in the head, blinding him, before escaping with four guns and 250 rounds of ammunition.

Four Riverside police officers chased Forrett and shot him twice in the back as he tried to scale a six-foot fence into a neighboring yard of an occupied home. The officers testified that they believed Forrett to be dangerous, armed and posing a threat to neighbors, but he was found to be unarmed at the time he was shot.

Earlier this month in a civil rights case before U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins in Los Angeles, the jury ordered the four officers to each pay Forrett $26,183 in punitive damages.

On Tuesday, the same jury ordered then-Riverside Police Chief Linford L. Richardson to pay $80,000 in punitive damages.

“The jury found that the Riverside Police Department harbored a custom of unconstitutional use of deadly force,” said Forrett’s lawyer, Stephen Yagman. “In America, nobody ever shoots someone in the back.”

Ken Fortier, the current Riverside police chief, said he was “astounded and, quite frankly, pretty angry” about the jury verdict, and said the city would appeal.

“Our shooting policy is actually more restrictive than what is required under the applicable Supreme Court rulings, and I have not changed that policy at all,” he said. “I’ve sent out a mailing to our officers, telling them to not let this screwball decision affect their judgment and, most of all, their safety.”

Yagman said Forrett has indicated he “intends to give the three victims of his crimes a significant portion of what he ultimately recovers, to provide recompense for something which he admits was awful.”