City settles in police shooting death

Redondo Beach News

by Mark McDermott

The city has reached a $500,000 settlement with the sisters of a man who was accidentally shot to death by a Redondo Beach police officer two years ago.

Nathan Lee Rossbach, 40, died from a shotgun blast to his chest on the night of Oct. 6, 2002, at the termination of a high speed chase. Police were responding to reports of a man driving recklessly in a 1992 Ford Bronco near Avenue E and Pacific Coast Hwy. The vehicle, it turned out, had been reported stolen in Los Angeles. Officers attempted to pull the vehicle over in Manhattan Beach, but Rossbach pulled to the side of the road only to speed off again north on Sepulveda.

Rossbach crashed when taking a sharp turn onto Imperial Highway. Officer Michael Strosnidel, attempting to subdue the fleeing man, fired a shotgun handed to him by another officer. He apparently believed the gun held only beanbag rounds, buckshot wrapped in canvas that is intended to only stun a man.

Rossbach, 40, died on Imperial Highway near the 105 freeway overpass. He had only been out of jail three weeks and was reportedly living as a transient at the time. He was a member of the Chippewa nation and originally came from the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. His two sisters, who still live there, filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming that police had used unnecessary force.

City Attorney Jerry Goddard said the settlement was not an acknowledgement of wrongful death but more a matter of risk assessment. The average award by juries in Los Angeles in such civil suits, he said, is $7.5 million, and at the very minimum the city looked at spending $200,000 to $300,000 in litigation.

"First of all, I am of the opinion that law enforcement is a difficult occupation," Goddard said. "Officers are called upon to make life and death decisions and sometimes circumstances are such that unfortunately the use of force results in someone's death. The difficulty here is how will a jury in a federal court view the action of the officers, and that is with regards to civil liability."

The council approved the settlement Tuesday night. David Rosenthal, the attorney representing Rossbach’s sisters, said that they were relieved be done with the legal wrangling.

"I think from my clients' perspective, they are just real happy to put this aspect of the whole affair – the litigation part of it – behind them and let the healing over having lost their brother begin," Rosenthal said. "They were very close to their brother growing up and he kind of fell on hard times out in California, ending in this whole tragedy."

Captain Joe Leonardi said that as a result of the incident, the RBPD had taken steps to insure something like it never occurs again. Non-lethal weapons are now colored with orange fluorescence on the fore-stock and orange rubber on the pumps. Previously, they were just taped yellow. No officer is allowed to fire a non-lethal weapon he or she has not loaded himself and training now emphasizes nighttime operation of weapons.

"It was a tragic mistake and we’ve done everything we can do to try to rectify and make sure it doesn't happen again," Leonardi said.

Rosenthal said his clients were pleased that the police had made such changes. "For what is was worth, the sisters took solace from the fact that the police department implemented changes, and as a result this wouldn't happen to anybody else," he said. "That was one of their biggest concerns." ER