Family Files Suit Over Long Beach Police Slaying

Relatives of a 26-year-old man who was killed by police last year sued the city of Long Beach on Thursday, alleging that officers recklessly opened fire on the man although he was unarmed and had not threatened them.

Filed in Long Beach Superior Court, the wrongful-death suit concerns the shooting of John F. Jordan in September as he led police on a 30-minute chase through a residential neighborhood.

The pursuit ended, the lawsuit states, when a group of officers fatally wounded Jordan as he climbed a chain-link fence between two homes in the 1200 block of East 56th Street.

Although he was not wanted for any crime, attorneys for the family say Jordan inexplicably fled from police as they arrived at a Long Beach house to see if a robbery suspect was there.

“Running away from the police is not a capital offense,” said William J. Clough, a Pleasanton attorney and former law enforcement officer now representing the Jordan family. “I don’t know how the police are going to justify it.”

But Long Beach City Atty. Robert E. Shannon said the district attorney’s office, which investigates officer-involved shootings, has cleared the police of any wrongdoing in the Jordan case.

Shannon said the officers were investigating an armed robbery and had received radio communications that the suspect might be carrying a gun. Police and one witness, he added, thought they saw a gun or a metal object in Jordan’s waistband during the chase.

“They were responding to a location in an attempt to arrest an armed robbery suspect who was to be considered armed and dangerous,” Shannon said, adding that Jordan was ordered repeatedly to stop.

The lawsuit names the city of Long Beach and its Police Department as defendants. It seeks damages and was brought by Jordan’s father, Gregory, of Huntington Beach; his 8-year-old son, Justin; his 4-month-old daughter, Jahni; and Jahni’s mother, Jennifer McDonald of Anaheim.

“This has deeply saddened our family,” said Gregory Jordan, who is a longshore mechanic at SeaLand Services in Long Beach. In February, he filed a claim against the city for $10 million but it was rejected, setting up the suit.

“We have never gotten any answers from the Police Department,” said Jordan. “No one has even come forward to tell us who the officers were.”

Added McDonald: “Why haven’t we gotten any answers? What are we supposed to do, just accept this? What am I going to tell his children?”

According to the lawsuit and the family’s attorneys, Jordan was shot about 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 3 after fleeing a home on Washington Street through a back window. Officers, Clough said, were looking for a suspect in a purse robbery.

Clough also said the suspect in that case was more than 6 feet tall, weighed at least 200 pounds and had long, blond hair--a far different description from Jordan’s, who was 5 feet 5, had short, black hair and weighed about 150 pounds.

Attorneys for the family further allege that officers shot at Jordan while he ran, sending stray bullets into parked cars, garages and occupied houses. U.S. Supreme Court rulings have held that police may not shoot at fleeing felons unless there is a threat of injury or death to police or others.

Shannon said the descriptions of the suspect and Jordan were similar in that both men had shaved heads.

Police have contended that Jordan made a gesture toward his waistband, where a gun might be carried. Clough said, however, that no weapon was ever found and that Jordan never threatened the officers who were chasing him.

Shortly after the suit was filed Thursday, about 50 of Jordan’s friends and family members gathered outside the police substation at Del Amo Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue several blocks from where Jordan was shot to death.