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Ashley MacDonald
Aug. 25, 2006 shot and killed by Shawn Randall and Read Parker at Sun View Park
The Orange County RegisterThursday, July 26, 2007
Parents sue over woman's death
Ashley MacDonald, 18, was carrying a knife when she was shot and killed by Huntington Beach police last summer.
By RACHANEE SRISAVASDI
SANTA ANA -- In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the parents of a knife-wielding teenager fatally shot by police alleged that their daughter did not lunge at officers, challenging the official account that the teen's death was a "justifiable homicide."
Lisa Marie Guy and Kenneth Francis MacDonald each seek at least $10 million in damages for the Aug. 25, 2006 death of their 18-year-old daughter, Ashley MacDonald. Defendants include the two police officers who shot MacDonald, Shawn Randall and Read Parker, as well as Huntington Beach Police Department and the city of Huntington Beach.
The shooting at Sun View Park spurred protests, and resulted in death threats against the officers.
MacDonald was approached by police after she was seen holding a 4-inch blade at the park.
A few hours earlier, she told her mother that she had been date-raped and drugged.
She also cut her mother on the wrist.
What happened next is under debate.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Santa Ana, alleges MacDonald was shot as she began to step away from Randell and Parker.
But prosecutors in January concluded MacDonald ran towards officers with the blade, and officers repeatedly shot at her in self-defense. They say she was high on methamphetamine at the time.
The parents could not be reached for comment. Their attorney, Jerry Steering, said the lawsuit is based on interviews with four eyewitnesses. "They are devastated,'' he said. "(The officers) should have just waited. She was not coming towards him."
Huntington Beach City Attorney Jennifer McGrath said the sheriff's department and Huntington Beach police also conducted separate investigations that cleared officers.
"You never want this to happen in any community,'' she said. But (the officers') behavior was appropriate given her behavior.''
The filing comes a month after Buena Park agreed to a $5 million settlement with the daughter of Juan Herrera, who was killed by police in 2004.
Contact the writer: (714) 834-3773 or rsrisavasdi@ocregister.com
Jerry L. Steering |
Civil Rights, Criminal Law, Personal Injury, Police Misconduct Representation
Tel: 949 474-1849 • Fax 949 474-1883
4063 Birch Street, Suite 100, Newport Beach, CA 92660
email: info@steeringlaw.com |
site: http://steeringlaw.com/ |
Police officers commonly abuse the criminal justice system by trying to frame their victims, because if they are successful, the victims are usually precluded from suing the police. They file false police reports with the District Attorney’s office, and conceal or destroy important evidence. The police usually get away with their frame-ups because the District Attorney’s Office is usually all too willing to protect the police.
-- Jerry L. Steering
Jerry L. Steering: Criminal Police Misconduct Cases | Civil Police Misconduct Cases |
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ashley27jul27,1,7950580.story?coll=la-headlines-californiaParents file suit in fatal police shooting
Huntington Beach officers are accused of excessive and unreasonable force
in the death of a woman wielding a knife.By Christine Hanley
Times Staff WriterJuly 27, 2007
The parents of a knife-carrying woman killed in a confrontation with Huntington Beach police filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Thursday accusing the two officers who shot her of excessive and unreasonable force.
The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana also alleges that investigators illegally searched Ashley MacDonald's home after she was killed. The suit seeks at least $40 million in compensatory and punitive damages for each of the teen's parents, Kenneth MacDonald and Lisa Marie Guy.
Huntington Beach Police Lt. Craig Junginger, a department spokesman, said he could not comment on pending litigation.
Neal Moore, deputy senior city attorney for Huntington Beach, said he had not seen the lawsuit but was not surprised that it was filed.
"The matter's been looked at by the city, the Sheriff's Department and the district attorney, and everybody's reached the same conclusion: The officers acted reasonably and appropriately under the circumstances," he said.
MacDonald, 18, was shot Aug. 25 by Officers Read Parker and Shawn Randell after they responded to 911 reports of a woman holding a knife while walking near Sun View Park.A witness told reporters that MacDonald appeared to be turning to the side to run away when she was shot, and that police acted improperly.
Investigations by the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the district attorney's office cleared the officers of wrongdoing, finding they were forced into a split-second decision to kill someone who was more dangerous than depicted in news reports.
According to prosecutors, MacDonald was under the influence of methamphetamines and told the officers, "I'm on drugs, just … kill me" before running toward them. She was shot 15 times when she came within eight feet of one of them.
In their lawsuit, MacDonald's parents dispute that their daughter lunged at the officers. Instead, they allege that she did nothing threatening and was shot when she "took a step to begin to walk away." They also allege that the officers continued to shoot her once she was on the ground.
"They just kept plugging away at her," said the parents' attorney, Jerry Steering.
The parents also contend that the officers had other options, including disarming Ashley with their batons or waiting "a very short time" that it would have taken for a fellow officer at the scene to load his pepper-spray gun before MacDonald was approached.
Lisa Marie Guy - mother of Ashley MacDonald -- also alleges that authorities held her against her will away from the scene, searching her apartment without her consent and repeatedly lying about her daughter's welfare, telling her that she was unharmed.
christine.hanley@latimes.com