Officer Sues Gun Firms, Bank Robbers’ Estates
Just two days before the first anniversary of the North Hollywood bank holdup, a Los Angeles police officer who was permanently injured in the dramatic gun battle with the two robbers, sued the bandits’ estates Thursday and the manufacturers of the assault weapons they used.
From the perspective of one of the first officers on the scene, the lawsuits provide some of the most vivid details yet of what the terrified, outgunned officers went through as they fled for cover behind police cruisers, civilians’ cars and trees during an unrelenting barrage of automatic weapons fire.
The officer, Martin Whitfield, 31, who arrived just as the robbers emerged from a Bank of America, charged that the gun makers are liable for his injuries because they should have known that their guns were “ultra-hazardous products.”
His lawyer, John McNicholas of Los Angeles, said the unprecedented charge stems from a product liability theory that, if successfully applied, could precipitate an avalanche of similar lawsuits against gun makers. Unlike his case, most other product liability suits allege that the item hurt or killed someone because it was defectively designed or manufactured.
The suit comes just one day before a legal deadline for victims in the robbery to file suit. Nine other officers and two civilians were wounded.
The two robbers, Emil Matasareanu and Larry Phillips Jr., wearing body armor that almost totally covered them, withstood hundreds of officers armed with pistols and shotguns for 40 minutes before they were killed.
The incident, captured live on television, was broadcast around the world and has prompted several news documentaries and served as the basis for at least one television episode of a police drama.
The suit against the weapons firms named nine manufacturers and importers.
It said the gun makers should not have sold the guns to the public because the weapons pose such a high risk of killing or maiming people and because they could be easily modified to make them even more dangerous than in their original state.
It said the robbers altered some of the weapons by using a trigger device to make them shoot more rapidly or by converting them to machine guns so that they would fire a continuous stream of ammunition as long as the men held the triggers back. The guns came with ammunition magazines that could hold up to 100 rounds.
In a separate lawsuit against the estates of the robbers, Whitfield said Matasareanu and Phillips caused him permanent injury. The suits seek an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages from the gun makers and the estates.
Whitfield, 31, is a nine-year veteran of the force and is on leave, McNicholas said.
The suits state that within one minute of Whitfield’s arrival, the robbers raked his patrol car with 47 rounds that penetrated the engine block, transmission and bodywork. Despite the cover of his car, he was hit in his left forearm and buttock.
Realizing he was vulnerable, Whitfield dashed for a line of trees.
“As he ran for protective cover, he felt and heard the assailants’ . . . weapon fire chasing him across the asphalt at his heels.”
One round shattered his upper leg and another shot through his upper body, knocking him to the ground, leaving a thin tree as his only protection. He said bullets whizzed by both sides of his head, but he could not move any farther.
He escaped only when fellow officers distracted the two robbers with their gunfire.
The more well-known companies in the suit include Bushmaster Firearms, which is in Maine; Heckler and Koch USA from Germany; Beretta USA of Maryland; and Norinco of China. Efforts to reach them Thursday were unsuccessful.
The other gun firms include: China Sports Co., Interarms of Alexandria, Va., Inter-American Arms Import & Export Co., ECI Systems & Engineering, Randalls Firearms and Accessories, and Inter-American Import-Export Co.
