Family settles with West Covina over man killed by police after stealing patrol car

Family settles with West Covina over man killed by police after stealing patrol car

by City News Service

Relatives of a man shot to death by West Covina police in 2016 after stealing a police car and fleeing have settled a lawsuit brought against the city in which they alleged the man’s death at the end of the chase in Glendale was unjustified.

Henry and Meline Alachadzhyan, the brother and sister of Gevork Alachadzhyan, filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court in November 2016, alleging wrongful death and battery. They sought unspecified damages

Their attorneys filed a notice of settlement July 9 with Judge Georgina T. Rizk.

The city settled the lawsuit for $450,000, City Manager David Carmany said. Neither party admitted liability or wrongdoing, Carmany added.

Alachadzhyan died at the scene of the shooting at about 10:30 p.m. March 13, 2016, in the 100 block of South Glendale Avenue in Glendale. West Covina police had pursued him before using a PIT maneuver to spin the car out in an action captured on video by news helicopters.

Lawyers for the city maintained their municipality was not liable for the actions of someone resisting arrest.

According to the lawsuit, Alachadzhyan was sitting inside the patrol car at the end of the chase when officers “negligently assessed the circumstances presented to them and violently confronted” the 45-year-old North Hollywood resident.

The officers, without warning, “proceeded to assault and batter” Alachadzhyan, ultimately “inflicting several gunshot wounds, which proved to be fatal,” according to the complaint.

Alachadzhyan was unarmed and did not pose a threat to the officers, the suit alleged.

Staff writer Christopher Yee contributed to this report.

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