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Los Angeles Police Department
shoots actor
$100 million claim against city
The
family of an actor slain by a police officer checking
a noisy Halloween party last month filed a $100 million
wrongful death claim against the city of Los Angeles,
lawyers said.
Television actor Anthony Dwain Lee, 39, was shot three
times in the back and once in the head Oct. 28 by Los
Angeles Police Officer Tarriel Hopper who was investigating
a noise complaint made against an upscale Benedict Canyon
costume party. Hopper claimed that Lee pointed a fake
.357 Magnum handgun at him and threatened his life and
that he shot Lee in self-defense.
Attorney Johnnie Cochran, Jr., retained by Lee’s
sister, Tina Lee Vogt, told reporters that autopsy results
seemed to contract Hopper’s defense.
An autopsy report by the Los Angeles Coroner and a separate
report that Cochran commissioned showed that Lee had
been shot from behind by four bullets with two in the
back causing his death as they tore through vital organs.
The reports also found that Lee had cocaine and alcohol
in his system at the time of his death.
Lee “could not have had time to withdraw a gun
and point it at an officer and then have been shot four
times in the back”, Cochran said.
“If you’re going to shoot a man in the back
and claim self-defense, that’s murder”, Cochran
said.
Cochran added that the filing was a precursor to a wrongful
death lawsuit that could be filed against the city should
it reject the claim.
“We’re doing this because of an absence or
unwillingness on the part of the police department to
acknowledge gross negligence”, Cochran said. “This
is a case about absence of (police) training.”
Cochran is best known for leading the so-called ‘Dream
Team’ of lawyers that won an acquittal on murder
charges for ‘Trial of the Century’ defendant
O.J. Simpson in 1995.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles Attorney’s Office
declined to comment on the claim . A spokesman for Los
Angeles Police Department was not immediately available
for comment.
Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks has insisted
there was no contradiction and that Lee could have moved
quickly during the shooting.
Cochran said he hoped that the incident would should
shine light on a national problem of police brutality.
“The LAPD never saw a shooting they didn’t
think they could justify”, Cochran said. “It
affects their credibility, quite frankly.”
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