L.A. Police Faces Possible Lawsuit In Shooting of Black Man

By Lenea Austin, Special to the NNPA
Los Angeles Sentinel
Found on 12-26-02

LOS ANGELES, Cal. (NNPA) -- Attorneys for the
family of a schizophrenic man shot to death by Los
Angeles Police officers filed a notice of claim with 
the city council regarding a wrongful death.

Lawsuit to be later filed against the LAPD.

The claim alleges that police used unreasonable
excessive force against 36-year-old Cecil Menifield 
Jr. after stopping him on 79th and Figueroa
streets for a narcotics investigation.

According to police, Menifield attacked an officer
during the stop, prompting a second officer to fire 
at Menifield, who fled in the officers' patrol car.

A police cruiser later found Menifield smoking a 
crack pipe near the stolen patrol car on the
northbound Harbor Freeway; said Lt. Horace Frank,
an LAPD spokesman.

Another tumultuous struggle occurred when a team of
officers tried to arrest Menifield. He was shot and
killed after an officer called out that Menifield
had hold of his gun, police say.

"It's wrong what they did to my son," Menifield's
mother Barbara said.

"There was no drug investigation in progress" when
police initially stopped Menifield, according to the
notice of claim.

And there was "no citizen down the street claiming
that (Menifield) was at the abandoned building
smoking crack," it said. Instead, according to the
notice, police found Menifield playing hopscotch and
peek-a-boo.

"He was just playing," his sister Catena Menifield said.
"Even if he had taken drugs that day, he wasn't bothering
anyone. He was just playing."

Attorneys Ollie Manago and Anna Neal, representing
the Menifield family, are still conducting preliminary
investigations into a possible case. But according to Neal, 
the lack of information being off to Menifield's family
by police is a red flag for cover-up.

Catena Menifield said that when her family requested a police report,
they were denied it by officers at the Newton Division because "it
contained information about an officer who was shot" at the scene.

But Lt. Frank said the report is not available to the family because 
it is incomplete.

"It will be a couple of months before the report is finished because it
is being investigated by the LAPD and the DA's office. This particular
one will be a big one -- probably about 30-40 pages, Frank said.

Family members are also struggling to get answers to questions about 
the fatal shooting from the county coroner's office.

They said Cecil Menifield was shot in the back, in the back of the 
head and once in the leg.

The family was told that it could take up to 60 days to receive a 
coroner's report, when "customarily it is released when the body 
is taken to the funeral home," Neal said.


Back