$100 Million Sought in Shooting of Actor

Saying that the “LAPD has never seen a shooting they didn’t think they could justify,” attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. filed a $100-million claim Monday against the city in the death of actor Anthony Dwain Lee.

Cochran said he hopes that the claim filed on behalf of Lee’s sister, the first step toward a lawsuit, will force the Police Department to improve officers’ training and develop policies to deal with noise complaints.

Officer Tarriel Hopper and his partner were responding to a complaint about noise at a Halloween party in Benedict Canyon about 1 a.m. on Oct. 28 when Hopper fired nine shots at Lee, hitting him four times.

The LAPD said Hopper fired after he shined his flashlight into a room from outside and Lee pointed a gun at him. The gun turned out to be a replica of a .357-caliber magnum. Police Chief Bernard C. Parks has said Hopper thought he was defending his life.

At a news conference Monday, Cochran said: “There is an unwillingness on the part of the department to acknowledge what we think is gross negligence.”

A county coroner’s report released last week said an autopsy showed that Lee had been hit three times in the back at different angles. Another bullet struck him in the back of the head.

Parks said Lee probably turned or spun when he saw Hopper’s gun or as he was fired upon, accounting for the bullet entries from the back. If Hopper missed Lee with the early shots, some have suggested, Lee might have turned away or ducked, exposing his back.

Cochran dismissed those scenarios Monday as “so improbable. We have asked our experts about that, and it is very, very improbable.” He also questioned why an officer would keep firing if a person’s back is turned.

Cochran suggested that Hopper should have known that Lee’s gun was a fake. He said a witness has told his team that Lee’s gun had an orange circle painted or affixed at the barrel tip.

“Witnesses said this was a replica gun, and if you know replicas, they have those little orange tips on them so people who come in contact with them who are trained become aware,” Cochran said.

Police, however, had shown the fake gun at a news conference shortly after the shooting. No orange markings were visible, and the gun appeared to be an exact replica.

At his own news conference last week, Parks said a witness told investigators that Lee had leveled the gun replica at Hopper and stepped toward him. An officer in such a situation would be justified in shooting to kill, Parks said.

Cochran, whose investigators also have interviewed the witness, said that man “was not in a position to see” what he says he saw. David Lynn, a Cochran investigator, said that although the witness was standing next to the officer outside, he would have been facing a wall as Hopper shot through the windowpane of a door.

Lynn also has suggested that the witness was drunk and could not remember what happened after the shooting. He said Monday, “The man may have blacked out.”

The LAPD, which is continuing to investigate the case, did not respond to that assertion.

“With regard to specifics of this lawsuit, we will not respond, as is our policy,” said Lt. Horace Frank, spokesman for the department. “But the department would like to reiterate its previous position that Officer Hopper’s actions were based on a perceived threat to his safety.”

Frank said the department is particularly sensitive to suggestions by Cochran and others that the officers should have taken into account that they were only responding to a complaint about a noisy party. In 1998, he said, LAPD Officers Steven Gajda and Filbert H. Cuesta were shot to death in separate instances while investigating parties.