Lawsuit Over Shooting by Deputy Settled

By Fred Alvarez

Dec. 16, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Ventura County has paid a $950,000 settlement to the family of an Ojai Valley man shot two years ago during a standoff with sheriff’s deputies.

The county agreed to the settlement to avoid going to trial in the lawsuit filed by relatives of Piarre Reed.

Reed, 43, was killed by a SWAT sniper outside his Maricopa Highway home in October 2003 after deputies responded to calls of shots fired at the Ojai-area residence.

The district attorney’s office ruled it a justified shooting, concluding that the deputy reasonably believed that Reed, who had earlier fired a weapon, posed a deadly threat to officers.

But Reed was unarmed when Deputy Christopher Payton shot him. Also, the evidence contradicted the Sheriff’s Department’s initial version of the incident, said lawyer Samuel Paz of Los Angeles, one of a trio of attorneys who filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Reed’s parents and three children.

A Sheriff’s Department news release after the shooting said Reed was preparing to fire at deputies when he was shot, Paz said. But Reed wasn’t armed when he was killed and never threatened or fired at deputies as the news release suggested, Paz said.

“I think the family got a good measure of justice,” Paz said of the settlement. “Here’s a guy with no criminal background. He’s in his home. It just didn’t seem like the kind of situation that had to end up with a shooting.”

Oxnard attorney Alan Wisotsky, who represented the county, said the case was settled to avoid the risk of losing at trial and being saddled with a much larger jury award. The veteran attorney and former police officer said he has seen jury awards in similar cases reach several million dollars.

But he said the county didn’t admit wrongdoing and that the district attorney’s office and an internal Sheriff’s Department review concluded that Payton’s actions were justified. Payton remains on the job, Wisotsky said.

“This case was a high-emotion, tragic event that obviously did not turn out the way anyone in the Sheriff’s Department intended,” Wisotsky said. “Could we have won this case at trial? Sure. But we felt this was probably the best insurance against an adverse verdict.”

Deputies responded the morning of Oct. 24, 2003, to reports of Reed acting erratically and firing shots into the air at his home in the unincorporated community of Meiners Oaks. Paz said the lifelong Ojai Valley resident, a longtime maintenance worker at Ojai Valley Hospital, had been depressed and on a downward emotional spiral due to illness.

According to authorities, Reed came out onto a second-story balcony when deputies arrived and fired a weapon, although not at deputies. Reed retreated into the house, and when he emerged again, Payton believed that he was armed and shot him once in the head.

“It’s a regrettable situation, but understandable under the circumstances,” said Chief Deputy Sheriff Bruce McDowell, who oversees the department’s internal affairs unit.

The lawsuit claimed a violation of Reed’s constitutional right to be free from excessive and unreasonable force. Both sides submitted to mediation, and lawyers hammered out the settlement in September. The family received the money this week.

“They have been extremely devastated by this,” Paz said. “They know [no amount of money] will bring him back.”