Settlement Urged in Police Shooting of Mentally Ill Man

A mentally disturbed stalker who was shot by deputies as he approached them with a police baton he had taken from one officer deserves $400,000 in compensation for his injuries, a county panel said, even though police were exonerated in the case.

The recommendation was made Tuesday by the Los Angeles County Claims Board to county supervisors.

Brian Mittenhuber, 19 at the time of the shooting, was allegedly stalking his estranged girlfriend when a sheriff’s deputy shot him five times in November 1991 in Santa Clarita, sheriff’s officials said.

The shooting occurred after Mittenhuber took a deputy’s baton and approached one of the officers, officials said.

In a report made public this week, the county counsel’s office recommends that the county settle the Mittenhuber case rather than risk a jury trial in which Mittenhuber was seeking $6.2 million.

According to the report, Mittenhuber and the Sheriff’s Department have agreed to settle the case for $400,000 and the Board of Supervisors is expected to follow suit within the next month.

Neither Mittenhuber nor his attorney could be reached for comment Tuesday.

The county counsel’s office has recommended settling the case even though Deputy Scott Seeman--who fired the shots--was found to have acted legally by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office in 1992.

Seeman was also found to have acted properly by an internal Sheriff’s Department investigation in 1991. He was not disciplined.

But the county counsel’s office memo recommends settling with Mittenhuber, in part, because at least one of the arresting officers knew that Mittenhuber was “mentally disturbed.”

“Based upon the testimony of Brian Mittenhuber’s medical experts, the fact that Brian Mittenhuber is currently brain damaged, and the fact that the initial responding Deputy knew that Brian Mittenhuber had mental problems, the jury can easily conclude that Brian Mittenhuber was a ‘mentally disturbed person’ at the time of this incident and that the Deputies should have used other tactics to avoid using deadly force.”

Mittenhuber suffered brain damage as a child, according to county documents.

The shooting occurred Nov. 29, 1991, after Mittenhuber went to the Santa Clarita home of his estranged girlfriend. The girl’s father had obtained a restraining order against Mittenhuber, but the youth had violated the order on three previous occasions, county officials said.

When deputies arrived and tried to handcuff him, Mittenhuber grabbed the baton of Deputy Gerald Newbold and threatened them with it, the deputies said.

But the girl’s father, Colin Thomas, testified at a deposition that the shooting was unjustified and Mittenhuber was not attacking the deputies.

The county counsel’s summary states that Thomas’ potential testimony “will likely lead the jury to a finding of civil rights violations by the Sheriff’s Deputies”--for which Mittenhuber was seeking $500,000.

Further, according to the report, an unidentified “police expert” was prepared to testify that deputies should have been trained to defuse a confrontation with a mentally ill person, and that the department’s Psychiatric Emergency Team should have been called.

The county counsel’s office did not return phone calls on Tuesday.

At the time of the shooting, according to the report, Mittenhuber was attending a community college and lived with his mother.

Since the shooting, in which a bullet struck him in the neck, the report states that “Mittenhuber has not been able to function outside of a long-term residential care facility.”

* SETTLEMENTS: Payouts raise questions. A1