Aug 1, 2008 8:31 am US/Pacific
Family Of Slain Postal Worker To Sue Inglewood PD
Kevin Wicks, 38, Was Fatally Shot July 21
INGLEWOOD (CBS) ―
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The family of Kevin Wicks will file a $25 million lawsuit against the city of Inglewood and its police department.
CBS
The 11-year-old daughter of a Postal Service worker killed by Inglewood police announced today that she and her mother are filing a $25 million wrongful-death claim against the city and the police department.
Kevin Wicks, 38, was shot to death by Inglewood police Officer Brian
Ragan at about 12:20 a.m. July 21 after four officers went to his door in
response to a report of an argument involving a man and two women, police said.
"He won't be here when I get married, when I have my first child,
graduation," Wicks' daughter, Milan, said. "I will miss his jokes, his laugh, his smile, his voice."
Police said Wicks, a 19-year employee of the U.S. Postal Service in West Los Angeles, answered the door with a gun in his hand and raised it toward the officers, prompting Inglewood police Officer Brian Ragan to open fire.
But relatives and community activists have decried the shooting, saying
officers went to the wrong apartment in the complex at 124 N. Hillcrest Blvd.
They also insisted that Ragan should not have opened fire, and if Wicks
was holding a gun, it was likely only for his safety since he lived in a
dangerous neighborhood and was responding to a knock on his door around midnight.
Attorney John Sweeney said he questioned the police contention that
Wicks pointed a weapon at officers.
"It defies logic that someone who is a law-abiding citizen, 38 years
old, a 19-year employee of the Postal Service, would point a gun at a police officer, at officers he called friends, or a department that has officers he called friends," Sweeney said.
Inglewood city officials could not be reached for immediate comment on
the filing of the claim.
Adding to the outrage over Wicks' death was the knowledge that Ragan, a
five-year department veteran, had been placed on leave in May after being
involved in a shooting in which a 19-year-old man was killed at a restaurant near Crenshaw Boulevard and 85th Street.
The Inglewood City Council voted this week to contract with the Los
Angeles County Office of Independent Review, an agency created to provide investigative oversight of the Sheriff's Department, to conduct a probe of the department.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
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