Progressive One

Klansman says head of California chapter stabbed him after they argued over this year’s Anaheim Klan rally.
BY JAMES QUEALLY
The man police say was stabbed by the head of the California chapter of the Ku Klux Klan over the weekend contends he was attacked because of an argument over an Anaheim Klan rally that resulted in several stabbings earlier this year.
In an interview with The Times, Richard Dillon said he was attacked in North Carolina by William Hagen, the head of the California chapter of the Loyal White Knights faction of the Klan, after he criticized Hagen for endangering the lives of Klan members during the February rally.
Hagen and Richard Barker, whom experts describe as the national head of the Loyal White Knights, were both arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon Dec. 3 in North Carolina, according to the Caswell County Sheriff ’s Office. Both men remain in the county detention center in lieu of bail.
Attempts to contact attorneys for Hagen and Barker have been unsuccessful. A spokeswoman for the Caswell County district attorney’s office declined to comment, and calls to the county clerk’s office attempting to obtain documents related to the charges have not been returned since Tuesday.
Hagen and Dillon, 47, of Hammond, Ind., had both traveled to North Carolina to attend a “National Klonvocation,” or meeting, of the Loyal White Knights on Dec. 2, Dillon said.
The next day, they planned to take part in a Klan-sponsored demonstration celebrating Donald Trump’s election victory in Roxboro, N.C., according to Dillon.
Dillon said he and Hagen were among at least two dozen people attending the meeting at Barker’s home in Yanceyville, N.C., on the day they arrived.
During the gathering, Dillon said Hagen confronted him about critical comments he posted on a KKK chat website after the Anaheim rally in February.
Dillon said he had previously questioned Hagen’s decision to lead a Klan rally in Anaheim without security and had blasted the “grand dragon” for endangering Klan members’ lives.
The rally erupted in violence when a large group of counterprotesters attacked the handful of Klan members who attended the rally, police and prosecutors have said. Three people were stabbed by Klan members during a rolling brawl near Pearson Park, although prosecutors have said the Klan members acted in self-defense.
At the Dec. 2 meeting in North Carolina, Dillon said, he apologized to Hagen for the critical comments he made online. But the California Klan leader became aggressive after getting drunk on “Skyy vodka and orange juice,” according to Dillon.
Sometime after midnight, Hagen began cursing at Dillon, and Barker repeatedly urged the two men to fight, Dillon said. At one point, Hagen threatened to have Dillon thrown out of the Klan. Eventually, Hagen pulled out a knife and rushed him, Dillon said.
“I knew it was time to fight for my life to get out of the home,” Dillon said. “I got stuck several times in the chest, my thumb was split wide open, and there was blood gushing out of my chest.”
Barker soon became involved, and the three men engaged in a brawl that spilled to the outside of the home, Dillon said. Dillon struck both men in the face several times, but both continued to attack him with knives, he said.
In his police booking photograph, Hagen can be seen sporting two black eyes and cuts to his forehead and cheek.
Dillon said he stumbled to his car, staining the passenger side door with blood, as Barker continued to pursue him.
“In my personal opinion I think he seen me stuck, he seen the blood pumping out of my chest, and he did not want me leaving there alive,” Dillon said.
Dillon eventually escaped to a nearby hospital with a friend, where he was treated and released. He later reported the incident to the Caswell County Sheriff ’s Office. Barker was arrested at his home a short time later, and Hagen was arrested the next day during a motor-vehicle stop, according to Capt. Frank Rose, who oversees criminal investigations for the Sheriff ’s Office.
Dillon said he has now quit the Loyal White Knights and asserted that several members have also disavowed the group because of the stabbing. Experts on extremism say the Knights claim 150 to 200 members across the U.S.
Despite the near-fatal experience, Dillon said the attack did not change his beliefs and that he plans to join another faction of the Klan.
“You can call me a white supremacist if that’s how you feel, but I don’t feel supreme to anybody. I’ve got my children, and I want them to stay white,” said Dillon, who contends he does not hate minorities but simply rejects multiculturalism.
Asked why he, and the Ku Klux Klan at large, had expressed support for Trump and planned to host a victory parade in his honor, Dillon said they were trying to make the best of a bad situation.
“I voted for the better of two evils in my personal opinion,” he said. james.queally
@ latimes.com  
Twitter:
@JamesQueallyLAT

LUIS SINCO Los Angeles Times
WILLIAM HAGEN, right, shown at a KKK rally in Anaheim, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon in North Carolina. The man police say he stabbed claims an argument over the Anaheim rally led to the attack.

Cool Breeze

Interesting theatre wouldn't you say? Two rabid slobbering pit bulls are more civilized.

Dillon wants his kids to stay white? Considering his behavior that is not a virtue. He's asking for it. Could you imagine his daughter bringing home a blackie home for dinner. Oh the shame of it! What's up P?

Progressive One

Nothing much CB.....just amazed at what America has become....it was always this way but the information age made everything more apparent........

Cool Breeze

Yep! Some faggots have gotten bold since Trump was elected. Its time to take it too their grille. The popping off will cease!

Progressive One

They really have...walking up to people's cars talking racist smack and the whole nine.......

Progressive One

MAN IS STABBED NEAR MOSQUE

Simi Valley police arrest man suspected of knifing victim in a possible hate crime.

BY MATT STEVENS AND MATT HAMILTON
A 29-year-old Simi Valley man has been arrested and booked on suspicion of committing a hate crime after he stabbed an apparent worshiper near a mosque, authorities say.
About 11:15 p.m. Saturday, Simi Valley police received reports of people fighting in a shopping center parking lot in the 1800 block of Erringer Road, said Sgt. Adam Darough. The shopping center is “adjacent” to a mosque, Darough said.
After officers arrived and separated those involved in the fight, police discovered that a man had been stabbed, Darough said.
“During their investigation, [officers] discovered a suspect had confronted a worshiper from the mosque, and after a verbal altercation, they began to fight,” Darough said. “During the fight, [the suspect] stabbed the victim.”
Police found the suspected assailant, John Matteson, nearby, Darough said. Matteson was taken into custody and booked into Ventura County Main Jail on suspicion of a hate crime, Darough said.
Jail records show that Matteson’s bail was set at $25,000. He was booked on suspicion of making felony criminal threats, performing a felony violation of civil rights and disturbing the peace by fighting, the records show.
Matteson is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday, according to jail records. It’s unclear if he was being represented by an attorney.
The Simi Valley Police Department has investigated a man with the same name and birth date as Matteson in connection with several incidents in recent years, according to Ventura County Superior Court records.
He pleaded no contest in October to disturbing the peace by loud noise, an infraction. In July, Matteson pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of public intoxication from a June 30 incident, according to court records. He also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of disturbing the peace stemming from a Nov. 9, 2015, incident.
Last year, he also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of making terrorist threats.
Authorities did not provide additional details about the victim. They said he was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and is in stable condition.
“We’re investigating whether or not this was instigated by [the victim’s] appearance and the association with the mosque,” Darough said. “We’re quite concerned that this occurred. We want to keep people of all faiths safe in the city.”
Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Sunday that he had spoken with several Muslims in Simi Valley and that they were “heartbroken.”
Members of the community told Ayloush that the stabbing had occurred near a “prayer area” where locals had gathered — but he said he did not know the exact address or type of building where the gathering took place.
Since election day, CAIR has received almost 200 reports of hate incidents directed at Muslims in the U.S., Ayloush said.
“It’s hard to believe that in this day and age we still have to deal with such hate and violence in our country, and especially in a place as diverse as Southern California,” Ayloush said.
The stabbing comes amid a national surge in anti-Muslim crimes, which jumped 67% in 2015, according to FBI statistics.
Researchers at Cal State San Bernardino have said the rise in anti-Muslim crimes accelerated after the San Bernardino terror attack in December 2015 and was fanned during the presidential campaign by Donald Trump’s call to bar Muslims from entering the U.S.
In recent weeks, mosques across California have received letters threatening genocide and referring to Muslims as “vile and filthy people.”
Officials note the difference between a hate crime and cruel comments, the latter of which are often protected by the 1st Amendment. The law prohibits physically harming someone based on his or her race, religion, national origin, gender or sexual orientation, among other characteristics. matt.stevens@latimes.com   matt.hamilton

Progressive One

Taking a direct route vs. racism

Black musician Daryl Davis’ method with white supremacists: Try to befriend them.

BY JEFFREY FLEISHMAN
“Who’s this black guy trying to make friends with the Ku Klux Klan?”
A raised eyebrow, a shake of the head.
“He’s a nut.”
Such were the sentiments of Scott Shepherd, a former Klan grand dragon, when he first saw Daryl Davis, a piano-playing bluesman who travels the nation attempting to dispel racism from those who hate him most. It doesn’t often work, but over the decades Davis, like a man on a quixotic pilgrimage, has collected more than two dozen Klan robes from those who have disavowed white supremacy.
His unlikely story unfolds in “Accidental Courtesy,” a documentary by Matt Ornstein that follows Davis on an odd and lively quest to Confederate monuments, Klansmen’s houses, boogie joints, churches and a hot dog stand where Davis informs Jeff Schoep, the commander of the National Socialist Movement, that Elvis got his inspiration and rhythm from Chuck Berry and that slaves did not arrive on these shores voluntarily.
“How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” Davis asks in the film, which opens in Los Angeles on Friday. “Throughout my life I have been looking for an answer to that.”
His disarming simplicity collides with a country amid racial unease marked by police shootings of black men and the nationalist populism and identity politics that propelled Donald Trump to the White House. These are the most divisive times in more than a generation, and Davis’ creed, genuine as it appears, seems to his detractors as naive and surreal against rising hate crimes, deepening culture wars and calls by supremacists to found a white nation-state.
“If you had told me when we began this project that in 2016 white supremacists would be not only broadcasting from a presidential candidate’s rallies but that he would be unwilling to promptly denounce their support, I would not have believed you,” said Ornstein.
Davis is criticized by some African American activists, including Kwame Rose, who in the film sits for drinks with Davis in Baltimore: “Infiltrating the Klan ain’t freeing your people,” says Rose, who protested the death in police custody last year of Freddie Gray. “You’re uneducated about the reality of most of the people who look like you…. Stop wasting your time going to people’s houses who don’t love you, a house where they want to throw you under the basement. White supremacists can’t change.”
Davis, 58, is undeterred. A big man with a deep-rolling voice and hair graying at the edges, Davis recounts American history and how jazz and blues rose from the black South to influence rock ’n’ roll and country music. The film portrays Davis, who has performed with Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, as an unabashed troubadour with nimble fingers and a curious message. The son of a foreign service officer, Davis spent part of his childhood overseas, far from the racism many African Americans learn early.
His first encounter with bigotry came when he was a 10-year-old Cub Scout. Bottles and rocks were thrown at him as he marched in a parade in Belmont, Mass. The bewildering incident was the seed of a mission that years later found him joining an all-white country band, attending Klan rallies, accepting a “certificate of friendship” from the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and starting a conversation with Klan Imperial Wizard Roger Kelly. The two became close, and Kelly asked Davis to be his daughter’s godfather.
When Kelly quit the Klan, he gave Davis his robe; Davis hopes one day to put it in a “Museum of the Klan.” The surrender of a garment that is as iconic as a burning cross was a peculiar act in a country with a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, school segregation, whites-only water fountains and other prejudices that reverberate today.
“It’s not history repeating itself, it’s history that has not gone away. I deal with Klansmen and white supremacists all the time,” Davis said, opining that racism became more overt in President Obama’s second term. “I did not vote for Donald Trump, and I do not support him, but I believe that Trump is the best thing to happen to this country in a long time. He’s bringing out the country’s ugliness. There’s no turning a blind eye anymore.”
He added: “We’ve simply been putting Band-Aids on the wounds of racism. We haven’t drilled down to the bone to get to its source.”
One of Davis’ strengths is his persistence to engage men like Shepherd, the son of an alcoholic father, who joined the Klan when he was 17 in search of acceptance. He became a Klan leader in Tennessee but left the organization after deeming it too militant in the 1990s. In 2008, Shepherd had part of his stomach removed. “I had ulcers probably from all the guilt and secrets held inside,” he said. “I wanted to be the person I was before the Klan.” He came across a TV program about Davis and contacted him three years ago.
“I looked him up, and he took me in like a brother,” said Shepherd, who traveled recently with Davis to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. “He’s really got something. You can take a positive action against a negative action and come out well. It’s one step at a time with Daryl. I think he can convert people.”
The challenge can be exasperating, impossible and comical. J.C. Faulk, a community organizer for Black Lives Matter in Baltimore, called Davis “reprehensible” and told him “get the ... out of my face.” In an exchange that could fit into a Quentin Tarantino movie, a white supremacist once told Davis that “black people have a gene that makes them violent.”
Davis asked the man to name three black serial killers. The man thought for a while but could name none. Davis rattled off a half-dozen white serial killers. To extrapolate on the man’s logic, Davis told him that white people have a serial killer gene. “Well, that just sounds stupid,” said the man. Davis smiled, making his point.
Talking to Klansmen “has worked for me, and I’ve proven it,” said Davis. “I appeal to people’s common sense. I don’t seek to convert them, but if they spend time with me, they can’t hate me. [The Klansman] sees that I want the same thing for my family as he does for his.... If you can work on the things in common, that’s how you build friendship.” jeffrey.fleishman
@ latimes.com  
Twitter: @JeffreyLAT


Photographs from First Run Features
“HOW CAN you hate me when you don’t even know me?” Daryl Davis asks in “Accidental Courtesy.”



DAVIS, seen with a Klan member, has collected robes from some who have disavowed white supremacy.

Progressive One

2nd knife attack suspect sought

One man is held, but police seek another man they say stabbed a worshiper near a mosque in Simi Valley.

BY JAMES QUEALLY
Authorities believe the man responsible for stabbing a worshiper near a Simi Valley mosque over the weekend is still at large, leaving faith leaders shaken that a violent person with a hatred for Muslims remains a threat to their community.
Police arrested Simi Valley resident John Henry Matteson, 29, in connection with the attack on a group of people leaving the mosque on Erringer Road on Saturday night. However, investigators believe he was involved in the fight but did not commit the stabbing, according to Simi Valley Police Sgt. Travis Coffey, an agency spokesman.
Matteson and another unidentified man approached a group of worshipers who had just left the Islamic Center of Simi Valley about 11 p.m. Saturday and began yelling slurs, Coffey said. The confrontation escalated to a physical fight, and the unidentified man stabbed one of the mosque attendees, Coffey said.
Matteson has been booked on suspicion of committing a hate crime, making criminal threats and fighting in public, online jail records show. He was injured during the confrontation, according to a statement by Simi Valley police.
The stabbing victim was treated for a non-life-threatening injury at Simi Valley Hospital. Coffey said the weapon used was not recovered but was likely a knife. He declined to identify the victim, citing the ongoing investigation.
Coffey said police do not believe the suspects planned the attack, and said the slurs hurled during the clash were racial, rather than religious.
“Our belief is they hadn’t staked out the mosque at this point,” he said. “It appears to be an opportunity crime.”
Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles, said a witness told CAIR officials that the fight began after Matteson approached the worshipers and asked to use a restroom inside their prayer center, which is an offshoot of a nearby mosque on Erringer Road. The group told him the center was closed for the night, Ayloush said.
“He didn’t like that. He left, apparently unhappy,” and returned soon with the other man, Ayloush said. “They both started using racial slurs.”
One of the men threw a beer bottle at the group, which had just left an event that featured a prayer and lecture. The stabbing occurred a short time later.
Ayloush described the stabbing victim as a 30-year-old father of two who lives in Simi Valley. The man was in stable condition, but Ayloush did not know whether he had been released from the hospital.
The doors to the Islamic Center of Simi Valley, which is adjacent to the parking lot where police say the stabbing took place, were shuttered Monday morning.
A sign announcing a 1 p.m. prayer service was placed inside the door, but no one was present at the center in the early afternoon. The doors to a larger mosque just blocks away were also bolted shut. Ayloush said faith leaders in Simi Valley have told him they do not plan to make public comments about the attack.
Ayloush said the incident, which comes just weeks after handwritten letters calling for a “genocide” against Muslims were mailed to mosques throughout the state, has sowed fear among Muslims across California.
“We’re not dealing with someone who only possesses bigoted views, but this is someone who has acted on them, someone who is actually violent,” he said. “You can only imagine the impact of such incidents on how members of the Muslim community, especially those who were the initial target, feel today. They’re wondering whether it’s safe for them to go about their normal lives.”
The second stabbing suspect was described as a white or Hispanic male who is 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 170 to 200 pounds, Coffey said. He was last seen wearing a dark hoodie.
Simi Valley police said they have not noticed the type of uptick in hate crimes or incidents in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential election that has been reported in other jurisdictions. Coffey said the last report to the department was in June, when a white person yelled racial slurs at a group of black men and women during a road rage incident.
A person who answered the door at the Matteson home less than a mile from the crime scene declined to be interviewed from behind a door that obscured his face.
“Unless you have money, I’m not talking to you,” the man said before closing and locking the door.
A car with a “Coexist” bumper sticker, which features symbols associated with multiple religions, was parked in the driveway.
Neighbor Veronica Sandoval confirmed that Matte-son lived at the address after looking at his booking photo. Sandoval, 21, said police had been called to the home several times to break up verbal altercations between Matteson and his father.
“He’s always in trouble,” she said of the younger Matteson.
His father would often apologize to neighbors who overheard the ferocious arguments, she said.
Sandoval said the news of the stabbing in her community was horrible but not surprising. She said the recent election cycle had made her aware of what she described as prevalent racist attitudes in the area.
“Every time I talk to my work friends, they make racist comments,” said Sandoval, who is Mexican and has lived in the area for six years.
Recently, she said, she has felt that the community’s attitude has turned anti-immigrant, with many locals proudly championing Trump’s signature proposal to build a wall along the Mexican border.
“It’s horrible,” she said of the stabbing. “It’s safe, but still ... you have to watch yourself.”
The stabbing comes amid a national surge in anti-Muslim crimes, which jumped 67% in 2015, according to FBI statistics. Researchers at Cal State San Bernardino have said the rise in anti-Muslim crimes accelerated after the San Bernardino terror attack in December 2015 and was fanned by the call Trump made in his campaign to bar Muslims from entering the U.S.
Simi Valley Mayor Bob Huber denounced the attack and promised to ask prosecutors to mete out harsh sentences against anyone involved in the stabbing.
“I just get really angry when I see this type of conduct,” he told The Times. “We’re not going to tolerate it.”
Huber said the Muslim community has been involved in multiple interfaith events in Simi Valley, including a multidenominational Thanksgiving celebration that had attendees from local mosques, Jewish temples, and Episcopal and Methodist churches in the area.
Ayloush echoed that sentiment.
“It’s a very engaged community,” he said. “There hasn’t been any history of friction or racism that is unusual in that area.” james.queally@latimes.com   Twitter:
@JamesQueallyLAT


ONSCENE.TV
SIMI VALLEY police arrive near the Islamic Center after a mosque attendee was stabbed during a fight.

Progressive One

3 shooting settlements to cost L.A. $8 million

Payouts to resolve lawsuits from families of unarmed men killed by police are part of a growing financial toll.

BY KATE MATHER AND DAVID ZAHNISER
Families devastated by the death of a loved one. Frayed public trust. Frustrated protesters camped outside City Hall.
On Tuesday, Los Angeles was reminded of another consequence of shootings by police officers: the financial fallout.
In a unanimous vote, the City Council agreed to pay more than $8 million to settle lawsuits stemming from the fatal LAPD shootings of three unarmed men. The settlements are among the highest paid by the city for deadly police shootings in the last decade.
Two of the shootings thrust the LAPD into a firestorm of criticism: the spring 2015 killing of Brendon Glenn in Venice and the 2011 shooting of Reginald Doucet Jr., a former college football player.
Glenn’s family agreed to settle their case for $4 million; Doucet’s, for $1.65 million.
The third shooting, which left 35-year-old Sergio Navas dead after a car chase that ended in Burbank, drew less public attention but raised questions among some within the LAPD.
His family will receive $2.5 million from the city.
After Tuesday’s vote, Councilman Paul Koretz called the spate of payouts from shootings by officers “very distressing.”
“It seemed for years that we had a better relationship with the community. We weren’t having fights over whether shootings were in policy or out of policy,” he said in an interview. “It seems like we’re going in the wrong direction, and it appears that police departments across the country are having the same problem.”
Much of the national criticism of police, stirred by a list of controversial shootings, has centered on how officers interact with African Americans. Two of the men killed in the shootings that were settled Tuesday — Glenn and Doucet — were black, as are the officers who shot them.
In recent months, the civilian board overseeing the LAPD has directed the department to find ways to reduce the number of police shootings by revamping department rules, revising training and emphasizing the use of less-lethal devices.
The LAPD declined to comment on the settlements Tuesday.
On a series of 12-1 votes, the City Council took the first step toward paying the settlements by issuing judgment obligation bonds, a form of tax-exempt borrowing that must be repaid over 10 years. Councilman Mitchell Englander cast the lone vote against that strategy, calling the bonds “one of the worst forms of debt.”
“It is akin to paying for your utilities with a credit card in order to keep cash in your savings account,” Englander said. “If we cannot pay for our operational costs, then we should be cutting our spending where necessary.”
If the council ultimately decides to issue the bonds, it will have to cast another vote next year.
City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, the high-level budget advisor, said the city has previously relied on such borrowing to resolve especially expensive legal cases, such as ones filed in 2007 over allegations of police misconduct at an immigration rally in MacArthur Park. Using the bonds could prevent the city from raiding its reserve fund, which is needed in case of an economic downturn, Santana said.
The high payout for Glenn’s family comes after LAPD Chief Charlie Beck recommended that the district attorney file criminal charges against the officer — the first time as chief that he has recommended such charges in a deadly on-duty shooting. The Police Commission sided with the chief earlier this year, finding the officer violated LAPD rules for using deadly force.
The $4-million settlement approved Tuesday will be split between Glenn’s mother and 4-year-old son, their attorney said.
“There’s just no way to undo this wrong,” said the lawyer, V. James DeSimone. “You can’t bring someone’s life back.”
The district attorney’s office is still weighing whether to charge the officer who shot Glenn.
Glenn was fatally shot May 5, 2015, during a struggle with police near the Venice boardwalk. Officer Clifford Proctor told investigators that he opened fire because he saw the 29-year-old’s hand on his partner’s holster and thought he was trying to grab the officer’s gun, according to an LAPD report made public earlier this year.
But video from a nearby bar and statements from Proctor’s partner disputed that account, according to the report. The video has not been made public.
A memo to City Council members about the case offered new details. According to the memo, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, the video showed Glenn reaching back — not for the officer’s gun. The holstered weapon was on the opposite side of the officer’s body that Glenn appeared to be reaching toward, the memo said.
In the second case, Navas was shot and killed at the end of a car chase in March 2015. Police tried to stop Navas after they spotted him speeding in a Mercury Sable in Toluca Lake, but investigators said he took off toward Burbank.
Six minutes later, Navas came to an abrupt halt on National Avenue, a dead-end street. The police SUV stopped alongside the Sable.
Officer Brian Van Gorden told investigators he was sitting in the passenger seat when Navas got out, slammed the Sable’s door and turned to face him, according to an LAPD report released earlier this year. Fearing Navas was trying to ambush him, Van Gorden said, he opened fire.
The Police Commission agreed with Beck’s conclusion that an officer with similar training and experience “would not reasonably believe Navas’ actions presented an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.” The district attorney’s office is still reviewing the case.
The settlement approved Tuesday will go to Navas’ parents and children, attorney Luis Carrillo said.
“It’s some measure of justice,” he said. “Hopefully this will lead to improved training of LAPD officers so that these tragedies will not continue to be repeated.”
The third shooting settled by the city Tuesday happened in January 2011, when officers went to Playa Vista to investigate reports of a disturbance and possible theft after a cab driver called police to complain that a customer had walked away without paying his fare. Officers found the customer — Doucet, a 25-year-old athletic trainer and model who had played defensive back at El Camino College and Middle Tennessee State University — on a sidewalk, naked.
Doucet initially cooperated with police and put his hands behind his head as if surrendering, according to a report Beck submitted to the Police Commission. When Officer Aaron Goff tried to handcuff him, however, Doucet balled his hands into fists and broke free from police, the report said.
Two officers chased him to the front door of his apartment building, where Goff told investigators he tried to grab Doucet from behind. Doucet turned and punched the officer, later grabbing the handle of his gun and trying to yank it out of the holster, according to Beck’s report.
Police say Doucet continued to punch both officers. As they continued to struggle with Doucet, Goff drew his gun and fired.
The shooting sparked an outcry from Doucet’s friends and family, who questioned how an unarmed man could have overwhelmed two officers and why police didn’t try to use a Taser to subdue him.
Police commissioners determined Goff was justified in using deadly force. The district attorney’s office declined to charge the officer, saying he acted lawfully to defend himself and his partner.
Lawsuits related to the shooting have wound their way through court in recent years. This fall, a jury sided with Doucet’s family, according to one of their attorneys. The settlement was reached before the panel could weigh potential damages.
A memo to council members cited the jury’s initial finding, saying the case was settled out of concern that a “large damage award was forthcoming.”
The settlement will go to Doucet’s daughter, who is now 8 years old, said her attorney, Brian Dunn. He said the money will give her some financial security and a good education — “things that any father would want for his child.”
“It’s really not a sense of victory, because you can’t ever feel like you won something when someone died,” Dunn said. “You can’t bring that person back. But there is a sense of peace.” kate.mather 
@latimes.com  
Twitter: @katemather david.zahniser 
@latimes.com  
Twitter: @DavidZahniser
Times staff writer Joel
Rubin contributed to this report.


CHRISTINA HOUSE For The Times
BRENDON GLENN, whose photo is shown at a February news conference alongside his attorney, was shot dead by police near the Venice boardwalk in May 2015.



Law Offices of Michael S. Carril
SERGIO NAVAS was killed after a car chase in 2015. The D.A. is still reviewing his shooting.



IRFAN KHAN Los Angeles Times
AUTHORITIES investigate the fatal police shooting of Reginald Doucet Jr. in Playa Vista in January 2011. Doucet was killed during a struggle with officers.

Cool Breeze

It appears that the only way this nonsense is going to cease is to hit these scum where it hurts in the wallet!

Progressive One

that is all they care about............green...once poor whites learn that...the poor will collaborate across the board.......but they still think being white is a premium...even if penniless...........

Cool Breeze

I'll bet they are slobbering at the mouth at the settlements.
http://youtu.be/IbVPA-EvL6c A militant friend sent me this!

Progressive One

I'll check it out....that is the only way to get rid of klan cops legally....put injunctions on their departments, monitor them...lock em up and pay big settlements/..the culture will change....if a cop shot someone in my family who was unarmed and obviously not a criminal....I wonder what I would do?

Cool Breeze

Revenge is a dish best served cold!

Progressive One

Yes Sir!!!!