Forrett Award

* Two letters (May 4) complained about the $185,000-plus awarded to our client Brian Forrett based on his having been shot in the back by four Riverside police officers.

Only one jury, and not two, rendered the verdicts. And only one judge was involved in the case; no judge ordered anything, as a reader suggests. Forrett was not “heavily armed” when he was shot in the back, and in fact he was unarmed, and that would have been apparent to anyone who saw him, including the police who shot him.

The court system proved in this case it can be trusted to do justice, because Forrett pleaded guilty, unconditionally and with no plea bargain, to his crimes and was given the maximum sentence of 32 years in state prison, and because the same system turned around and told the cops not to shoot unarmed people in the back. (Forrett is serving his sentence for the 1990 burglary of a Riverside home in which he tied up three victims, shot and blinded one victim and escaped with four guns and 250 rounds of ammunition.) Such a system is not flawed, but wonderful.

The message this should send is that all wrongdoing will be punished, including wrongdoing by police: and that should comfort all Southern Californians who should be scared to death of their out-of-control police. No one condoned anything Forrett did, and no one condoned what the police did to Forrett.

STEPHEN YAGMAN

Venice