People and the News

Under deadline pressure, Times staff writer Lee Romney detailed the life and untimely death of 77-year-old Ted Franks, who was shot and killed by a police officer who mistook him for a burglar.

AWARD

Orange County Press Club

1st Place (tie): News Story

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False Alarm Leads to Fatal Shooting

By LEE ROMNEY

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Sept. 12, 1996

HUNTINGTON BEACH--Ted Franks was 77 and had set up housekeeping at the offices of a small manufacturing firm that helped him turn his dream engineering project into a reality.

He worked late nights, listening to waltzes and cooking up his special chili in a makeshift kitchenette in the quiet industrial park just south of the Huntington Beach Mall.

But at 4:25 a.m. Wednesday, Franks stepped into a dim hallway and was shot by a Huntington Beach police officer, whose identity was not disclosed.

The officer had come upon Franks, police said, while investigating a burglary alarm that turned out to be false.

Franks stumbled back into his bedroom, bleeding from a wound to his left leg, and died nearly two hours later at UCI Medical Center in Orange. The cause of death was possibly blood loss or a heart attack, said Huntington Beach Police Lt. Dan Johnson.

“Ted’s so harmless,” said Steve Ramelot, owner of Tolemar Manufacturing, where the shooting occurred. “He was just an old man in his underwear.”