Oxnard OKs Settlement in Police Killing

The Oxnard City Council has agreed to one of the largest settlements in city history, a payout of $1.55 million to the family of a distraught young artist killed by police while cowering in his bedroom closet.

Under a tentative agreement approved recently, the city agreed to settle lawsuits filed by the parents of 23-year-old Robert Jones Jr., who was fatally shot by Oxnard officers in 2001 after his mother called police to take her knife-wielding son to a hospital.

“There is an agreement in principal,” said attorney Alan Wisotsky, who represents the city. “It’s been approved by the powers that be on my end. So it’s pretty much a done deal.” Robert Jones Sr. and a representative for Jones’ mother, Ida Perkins, confirmed that a tentative agreement had been reached. But they declined to discuss details until the deal is complete.

Wisotsky said the settlement totals $1.55 million, covering both the mother and the father, who are no longer married.

“It’s pretty much where it should have fallen,” Wisotsky said. “Nobody walked away smiling and feeling victorious. And it’s certainly not an admission of wrongdoing, but just a resolution to end the continued pain and suffering of it.”

The record payout made by Oxnard was a $3.5-million settlement to the family of Police Officer James Jensen in 1999 after he was fatally shot by another officer in a botched drug raid.

“It appears to be a good, fair settlement,” Samuel Paz, Perkins’ attorney, said of the Jones agreement. But the most significant results of the Jones case, Paz said, were tactical and training changes the Oxnard Police Department implemented after the killing. “They now have crisis intervention teams 24-7,” Paz said. “That makes the family feel a little better about the settlement. Ida Perkins, in particular, insisted on changes in the department to prevent the kind of death her son had to endure.”

Wisotsky said department reforms after the Jones shooting were not prompted by legal action because most changes were made before the suits were filed. “Neither the lawsuits nor the lawyers involved had any bearing upon Chief [Art] Lopez’s steps to reform or create change in the department,” he said.

The Jones fatality was the last in a string of police shootings that touched off fear and anger in Oxnard’s black and Latino communities. Over eight months in 2001, Oxnard police shot and killed five men, most of them mentally ill. All the shootings were ruled justified by county prosecutors, but Lopez quickly ordered more training for his officers on how to calm emotionally disturbed suspects. More than two dozen officers have undergone weeklong training classes, and every officer in the department has received an eight-hour training course, Lopez said.

The Jones shooting, in particular, raised questions about tactics used by officers when confronted by mentally ill suspects or those who may pose a threat to public safety. .

Jones was killed the morning of Aug. 24, 2001, after his mother -- concerned over her son’s threat against her husband the night before and worried that Jones might hurt himself -- called police in the hope that they would take him to a hospital for treatment. Jones was shot when he refused to drop an 8-inch butcher knife, retreated into a closet, then rose toward officers when they forced him out.