Paramedics, Police Sued in Death of 19-Year-Old

The family of a Westminster man who was arrested after a medical emergency call and later died at the hospital has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages, the family’s attorneys said Tuesday.

According to the lawsuit, family members called for paramedics Oct. 10 to report that Tuan Tang, 19, appeared seriously ill, possibly because of a drug overdose.

But police officers and paramedics failed to properly evaluate his medical condition, the suit contends. Instead, officers arrested Tang on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance.

At the police station, Tang appeared to have difficulty breathing. He was taken to Huntington Beach Hospital, where he died a week later.

The lawsuit, filed Feb. 17 in federal court in Santa Ana, names Westminster, its Police Department, the county, the Orange County Fire Authority, and several officers and paramedics as defendants.

Westminster police spokesman Robin Kapp declined comment Tuesday, citing pending litigation. Fire authority officials did not return a call seeking comment.

A recently completed autopsy of Tang’s body revealed Tang died of “complications from acute cocaine intoxication,” supervising deputy coroner Larry Esslinger said Tuesday.

Attorney Geoffrey Lyon, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Tangs, said officers and paramedics should have stabilized Tang before arresting him.

“They could have waited until his stomach was pumped,” he said.

Instead, the suit alleges, as Tang “gasped for air, the police hogtied his hands to his feet” and tossed him “face down in the back of the patrol car and took him to the police station instead of the hospital.”

When Tang’s parents arrived at the hospital their son was “virtually brain dead on a ventilator,” Lyon said. The police then handed them a misdemeanor ticket for Tang’s intoxication.

The Orange County district attorney’s office is investigating the incident, but spokeswoman Tori Richards declined to provide further details.