Crime Beat

the chief and his officers should pay it out of their own pockets. Gates was to pay $20,505 of the award.
    The verdict touched off a debate this week among council members over whether the city should pay the damages anyway. The council has routinely picked up the tab for punitive damages assessed against police officers for incidents that occurred while they were on the job.
    On Wednesday, the new lawsuit further added to the controversy. The new suit is identical to the first one but was filed on behalf of two-year-old Johanna Trevino, daughter of Juan Bahena, one of the robbers police killed.
    Yagman said Trevino was born six days after Bahena, whose real name was Javier Trevino, was killed and can file the lawsuit under a federal precedent set last year in another case involving the SIS. In that case, in which Yagman is also the plaintiff’s attorney, a federal appeals court held that a child who was not yet born when a parent was killed by police may still sue for damages over losing a parent.
    The new lawsuit names 20 SIS officers, Gates, Mayor Tom Bradley, 17 former police chiefs and commission members and all city council members in office at the time of the shooting.
    In a letter enclosed with the suit to the council, Yagman said:
    “If the council votes not to indemnify Gates for the punitive damages in this case, then all of you who make up the majority so voting will be dismissed voluntarily as defendants in this new case.”
    Vincent, the city attorney, said he could not comment on the lawsuit until he received it. But of Yagman’s letter to the council, he said, “I have never heard of an attorney doing anything like that at all.”
    Council members who received it Wednesday also reacted strongly.
    Councilwoman Joan Mike Flores said the lawsuit and Yagman’s tactics were an outrage.
    “I will not be intimidated by these types of tactics,” she said in a statement.
    Yaroslavsky said the letter Yagman sent could hinder efforts by council members who believe Gates should pay the damages awarded by the jury.
    “I don’t think Yagman’s letter advances that cause at all,” he said. “I think it’s unnecessary and inappropriate. My inclination is not to pay for Chief Gates. . . . I will come to a final conclusion based on the facts, not a threat.”
    But Yagman said his letter was an effort to make the council abide by the wishes of the jury that heard the McDonald’s shooting case.
    “We are just saying that if they refuse to indemnify Gates, we will drop the case,” Yagman said. “It might be wrong to threaten to sue them. But we haven’t done that. We have sued them and said, ‘If you act in a responsible way we will consider dismissing you from this lawsuit.’”
ATTORNEYS AWARDED FEE OF $378,000 IN BRUTALITY SUIT
Courts: The ruling could lead to more sparks between lawyer and the city council.
August 5, 1992
    A federal judge has awarded $378,000 in legal fees to civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman and his partners for their work on a successful excessive-force lawsuit against former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates and nine police officers.
    The ruling released Tuesday sets up another potential conflict in a running legal battle between Yagman and the city council over the council’s financial support for officers defending themselves from civil suits alleging brutality.
    Yagman outraged city officials earlier this year when he submitted a bill that asked for nearly $1 million in fees for himself and two partners who handled the lawsuit over a 1990 police shooting that left three robbers dead and one wounded outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland.
    City attorneys, who had argued that the fee award should be about $216,000, said they considered it a victory that Yagman received much less than he asked for, but Yagman said he was satisfied with the amount. A decision has not been made by the city on whether to appeal the decision. After a three-month trial, the surviving robber and the families of the three dead men won a $44,000 damage award against Gates and the nine officers, all members of the department’s Special Investigations Section. The plaintiffs maintained that the officers violated the robbers’ civil rights by opening fire on them without cause, and that Gates’ leadership fostered such excessive force.
    The determination of legal fees by U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts on Friday could widen the battle between Yagman and the council over who will pay