Family of Man Slain by FBI Files Claim for $9 Million : Litigation: They allege that a federal agent shot Kevin Arnold, a former Fountain Valley police officer suspected in a string of robberies, ‘point blank in the chest as he sat in his vehicle.’

The family of Kevin D. Arnold, a once-decorated Fountain Valley police officer turned robbery suspect who was slain last month by the FBI, filed a wrongful-death claim Tuesday seeking $9 million from the U.S. government.

“We have a lot of questions about how this happened,” said Mark Arnold, the dead man’s brother and an officer with the UC Irvine police force. “He was trying to flee, he was unarmed and we feel that he was not a threat to the officers.”

The family’s claim alleges that an FBI agent reached into Kevin Arnold’s car holding a gun July 24 and shot him “point blank in the chest as he sat in his vehicle” in a shopping center parking lot near the former police officer’s Mission Viejo home.

The claim--which is legally required before the family can pursue a federal lawsuit--accuses the FBI of negligence. The family seeks $5 million for the dead man’s wife, Kathleen Arnold, and $1 million each for their four children--Gillian, 13, Daniel, 10, Kendra, 8, and Kaitlyn, 3.

Leon Weidman, who heads the civil division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, declined to comment on the claim Tuesday, saying his office had not yet received a copy.

After Kevin Arnold’s death, an FBI spokesman said the shooting occurred when Arnold initiated a confrontation as federal agents attempted to arrest him for a string of bank robberies.

Arnold, 34, had lost his police career last year after being convicted of embezzling nearly $40,000 from the Fountain Valley police union of which he was president.

That turn of events came about, the dead man’s brother said Tuesday, only after years of psychological turmoil. The once-excellent cop became increasingly despondent after several officer-involved shootings and the death of his longtime canine “partner.”

At one point, said Mark Arnold, his brother rehearsed scenarios for staging his own on-duty suicide. And eventually, he said, the young police officer may have turned to crime in a misguided effort to provide for his wife and children.

Of events on the day Kevin Arnold was killed, his brother said: “I have no doubt that he was leading the FBI away from the house to protect his family. He’d been helping his son mow the grass earlier. He came out of his house, saw the FBI surveillance, got his keys and left the area.”

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The seeds of his brother’s downfall, Mark Arnold said, were sown in 1983 when the then-23-year-old rookie Fountain Valley cop got involved in the first of several officer-involved shootings that were to dog his career. The incident, in which the officer shot and wounded a suspected burglar fleeing on foot, later became the basis for a police training film and earned Arnold a Medal of Valor.

Over the next few years, Kevin Arnold was involved in three other shootings, including one in which he and another officer killed a suspect.

And while Kevin Arnold publicly seemed to be bearing up well under the strain, his brother said, his family soon began seeing indications of psychological unraveling.

“He would frequently wake up with nightmares to the point where he was jumping off the bed and rolling on the floor,” Mark Arnold said. “A lot of these things he never opened up to anybody about, but I do recall one time when we were sitting in the car and he began to cry. He said that you couldn’t know what it’s like to have your family threatened and to feel threatened every day.”

Mark Arnold said he later learned that his brother became convinced he would die on duty, even to the point of planning various scenarios under which he could “fake” his own suicide to make it look accidental.

“He became very matter-of-fact and impersonal about police work,” Mark Arnold said.

While Kevin Arnold was seeing a psychiatrist, his brother said, the doctor had been provided by the department and had influence over hiring and firing. “I don’t think he could really open up to someone who could end his career,” Mark Arnold said.

In 1994, the police dog Kevin Arnold had worked with for years died of cancer, greatly upsetting him. And about the same time he got fired from the department for embezzling $36,229 from the Fountain Valley Police Officers Assn., of which he had been president.

Over the next year, Mark Arnold said, the family thought that Kevin was doing better. He got involved in church activities, worked as a salesman for a pet supply company and expressed relief at being out of police work.

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Late last month, however, their illusions evaporated when FBI agents cornered the father of four in the parking lot of Portola Plaza in Mission Viejo and shot him in the chest. The FBI later identified him as a suspect in 12 bank robberies believed to have netted nearly $32,000.

“Any rational person would have known that the bank robberies were wrong,” Mark Arnold said, “but Kevin wasn’t rational. . . . He just wanted to provide for his family any way possible.”

Kathleen Arnold is still reeling from her husband’s sudden death, said Santa Ana attorney James R. Traut, who filed the family’s legal claim.

“Here is a woman who lives in a rented house with four kids, no income and her husband is dead,” Traut said. “She doesn’t know what’s up or down.”