New Trial Granted in Shooting

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has granted a new civil trial to a man shot by a Los Angeles police officer because a deputy city attorney representing the LAPD failed to turn over information that was potentially damaging to the department’s case.

The judge last week granted a new trial to plaintiff Steven Short because Deputy City Atty. Rod Fick failed to provide Short’s lawyer with two memos drafted by the LAPD’s inspector general that were highly critical of the officers’ conduct in the Feb. 8, 1999, shooting.

One of the memos questioned the legality of what the inspector general deemed “a freelance operation” in which several officers hunted down a man who had thrown a half-empty beer can at an off-duty officer’s car. Inspector General Jeffrey C. Eglash recommended that a report on the officers’ action be sent to the U.S. attorney’s office for potential criminal prosecution.

Attorney Carol Watson said the civil case against the officers was over when she read about the documents in an article in The Times in May. Fick said in an interview at the time that he was aware of the documents and thought that he had provided them to Watson, even though he had doubts about their admissibility in the case.

Fick stated in court, and provided a sworn declaration under penalty of perjury, that he was unaware that any such documents existed when the case went to trial. He failed to discover them, he said, because he did not view the inspector general’s office as being part of the Police Department and therefore did not seek files from the office.

The request for documents also sought material under the control of the city’s Police Commission. The inspector general reports to the commission.

“The city attorney’s error . . . “ wrote Judge Ralph W. Dau, “is enormous.”

Dau said he was unable to determine whether the withheld documents would probably have changed the outcome of the trial. But the judge found that the mere fact they were withheld resulted in the plaintiff being denied a fair trial.

Fick did not return phone calls seeking comment on the judge’s ruling.

Events Spiraled After Beer Can Was Thrown

On Feb. 7, 1999, at about 10:45 p.m., Officer Chad Butler had finished his shift at the Devonshire Division and was driving home when a passenger in a car ahead of him--for no apparent reason--threw a can of beer at his vehicle. The passenger then shouted obscenities at Butler and challenged him to fight, according to police reports.

Butler noted the license plate number and drove to the Foothill police station to report the encounter. At the station, Officers David Hance and Jeffrey Nuttall, who once was Butler’s partner, were sent to investigate. Butler, even though he was off-duty, joined them.

The officers tracked down the driver of the car, whom they handcuffed and questioned about his friend who threw the beer can. The officers had the driver telephone his friend and get the address where he was without alerting him that the police would be on their way to arrest him.

Hance and Nuttall asked two other officers, Michael Patton and David Fletcher, to assist them in arresting the man, Travis Garlits.

When the officers arrived at the home, they noticed the front door slightly ajar, they said. With his gun drawn Hance knocked on the door, which caused it to swing open, and identified himself as an officer, police said. Inside, the officers saw Garlits sitting on the couch with two men and a woman. The officers, who all had their guns drawn, ordered everyone on the floor.

According to the police report, Officer Patton heard a noise coming from one of the bedrooms and went to investigate. He said he identified himself as a police officer and knocked on the door. Short, a 23-year-old television stage worker, who was armed with a shotgun, opened the door. Short said he was awakened by the commotion and grabbed his weapon to investigate the disturbance.

Patton shouted at Short to drop the shotgun just as Short placed his finger on the trigger and began moving the barrel upward, the police report states.

Allegedly fearing for his life, Patton shot Short, striking him in the hip.

In his reports to the Police Commission, Eglash noted that the official police account is significantly at odds with those given by other witnesses. For example, Short acknowledged that he had a shotgun but said that he was trying to drop the gun when police shot him.

“Why did you shoot me?” one witness quoted Short as saying to Patton. “You came into my house. I didn’t know you were the police. I was trying to drop the gun.”

Eglash concluded that the officers had no legal justification to enter Short’s residence or arrest some of the people there. The officers did not have a warrant for their search.

Eglash said Garlits was “mostly guilty of being an obnoxious jerk, not a violent felon.”

Judge Initially Ruled Unlawful Detainment

The first trial in the case ended with Dau ruling that Short and a guest in his home had been unlawfully detained by police following the shooting. They were awarded a total of $200,000. But the jury determined that the officers did not violate the victims’ civil rights.

Watson said in an interview Friday that she believes the LAPD has failed to punish officers who engage in improper shootings--a contention she hopes to raise in the retrial of her client’s lawsuit.

“That leads officers to believe they can get away with anything,” she said. “And the fact is they can.”