Payout Advised in LAPD Case

Lawyers for the city of Los Angeles have tentatively agreed to pay $1.7 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit stemming from a 1999 LAPD shooting in which an officer is accused of firing at an unarmed man and then planting a gun near him to cover it up, attorneys in the case said Tuesday.

City attorneys, who initially rejected the claims of police misconduct, sought to settle the case after two key officers involved in the incident--including the one who fired the contested shots--refused to testify under oath, invoking their constitutional right against self-incrimination.

The city’s case also was hampered by other problems, including an active criminal investigation into the officers’ conduct and the testimony of a sergeant who said he saw an officer plant a “throw-down” weapon at the scene.

In the opinion of his captain and other supervisors, Officer William Ferguson--who pulled the trigger--exhibited “a pattern of conduct that [was] consistent with criminal police misconduct” around the time of the shooting, according to a search warrant affidavit. When investigators searched Ferguson’s locker, they found a replica weapon inside.

“This is a win-win settlement in terms of saving taxpayers dollars and putting this case to rest,” said attorney Pete Ferguson (no relation to the officer), who represented the city. The settlement offer still requires the City Council’s approval.

Despite evidence calling into question the officers’ account, LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks has maintained that the shooting was within department policy.

According to the official police account, Ferguson and his partner, Officer Jeffrey Robb, were conducting a routine narcotics investigation at a reputed crack house in the LAPD’s Southeast Division on the evening of Feb. 8, 1999. The officers said a teenage drug dealer pointed a gun at Ferguson through a window of the house. Ferguson, in fear for his life, fired two shots at the teenager, missing both times, police said.

The occupants in the house, however, described a dramatically different encounter with the two officers, who were known on the streets as “Batman and Robin.”

They said the officers tried to provoke the shooting by banging on the doors and windows and identifying themselves first as rival gang members and then as police. At one point, they said, an officer fired into the home, grazing the head of a female occupant.

Lending support to their version of events is a tape recording of a 911 call that one of the occupants made pleading for help.

“Hey lady,” resident Magellon Harmon said to the emergency dispatcher, “get somebody over here. . . . We don’t know if they’re real cops or not.”

She replied: “Sir, we don’t show any police at that [address.]”

Moments later, there was a gunshot.

“They shot somebody!” a frantic Harmon can be heard shouting into the phone. “Oh, they shot a girl.”

The LAPD detective who handled the officer-involved-shooting investigation said the apparent gunshot must have originated from within the house. He said he relied in part on the opinion of an LAPD firearms expert. But when contacted by The Times, the firearms expert said he did not think it was possible to conclude whether the gunshot came from inside the residence simply by listening to a tape recording. None of the officers on scene that night claimed to have heard the gunshot.

A sergeant who served as the “incident commander” on the night of the shooting also bolstered the plaintiffs’ account. In interviews with The Times, Sgt. Warren “Ken” Brooks said he saw Ferguson run into the house after the shooting, pull a gun from his rear waistband, plant it under a bed and then claim it was the weapon that the young gang member had pointed at him.

Brooks’ account has come into question, however.

In a previous interview with Internal Affairs Division officers months after the shooting, Brooks said he saw Ferguson with a gun, but he did not explicitly allege that it was planted. Brooks, who is on a stress leave and is suing the LAPD, said he told two captains about his observations that night and they assured him that detectives would address it as part of their investigation. The captains denied that Brooks ever made such statements to them.

After a Times article about the shooting in August, Chief Parks said he was unaware of the ongoing criminal and internal LAPD investigations into Ferguson’s conduct when he recommended to the commission that the shooting be found in policy. Nonetheless, Parks said, no new information had come to light that caused him to revise his initial conclusion.

The nine plaintiffs in the case also alleged in their lawsuit that Ferguson and Robb continued to harass them in the weeks and months after the shooting. Many of the plaintiffs said they were falsely imprisoned for months as a result of being framed by the pair.

The proposed $1.7-million settlement is a lump sum that covers the claims of the nine plaintiffs and their lawyers’ fees. The claims of a 10th defendant are being dismissed as part of the settlement.

Private counsel was retained to represent the city, the Police Department and individual officers after officials from the city attorney’s office said they had too many conflicts in the case to represent the defendants.

Attorney Ellen Ellison, who represented the plaintiffs, said her clients were pleased with the settlement. She said she believes the city had to settle because of the “overwhelming evidence of a cover-up.”

“The trail of evidence goes all the way to the top, to the chief,” she said.

Cmdr. Sharon Papa, a spokeswoman for the LAPD, said she had not been informed of the proposed settlement and could not comment.

Though the settlement will conclude the civil litigation associated with the case, the LAPD, the inspector general and the district attorney’s office still have pending investigations into the matter.

Ferguson, 29, is on trial before an LAPD disciplinary panel on charges related to the shooting and the alleged framing of Ellison’s clients during a drug arrest a week after the shooting. He has been relieved of duty. Through his attorney, he has denied any wrongdoing.

Robb, 28, resigned from the LAPD last year in the face of unrelated misconduct charges that also involved Ferguson, according to confidential police documents. His attorney declined to comment about the settlement.