Redondo Beach settles in fatal police shooting lawsuit Officers mistakenly used live rounds to subdue a high-speed chase suspect near LAX in 2002. Dead man's two sisters will split $500,000 payout from the city.

Daily Breeze

By Larry Altman and Kristin S. Agostoni

Redondo Beach will dole out a $500,000 settlement to the sisters of a motorist accidently shot and killed by a city police officer after a high-speed chase two years ago.

Nathan Lee Rossbach, 40, died Oct. 6, 2002, near Los Angeles International Airport when a Redondo Beach police officer fired a live round from a shotgun into Rossbach's chest, mistakenly believing he was shooting beanbag rounds to subdue him.

The man's siblings filed a wrongful death suit a year later, alleging police acted with negligence and used unjustified force. Police called the shooting a tragic mistake.

In a settlement agreement, Rossbach's sisters, Trudy Cook and Mamie Rossbach of the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Red Lake, Minn., will divide the $500,000. The money will be paid out of the city's liability reserves.

The City Council approved the pact unanimously Tuesday night.

"It was very hard on them emotionally," S. David Rosenthal, the sisters' Sacramento attorney, said Tuesday afternoon. "It was very tragic for everyone involved. ... I think they're kind of looking at this as part of the healing process.

"Something like this, you never get over. At least the litigation is put behind them."

Rossbach, a transient with no known address, was out of prison for less than three weeks when he was shot in a stolen vehicle at the end of the chase.

Police officers pursued him that night shortly after receiving a call of a reckless driver on Pacific Coast Highway at Avenue E.

Officers spotted a 1992 Ford Bronco, which had been stolen in Los Angeles, and tried to stop it in Manhattan Beach. The driver, identified later as Rossbach, pulled over. But as officers approached him, he sped away and the chase began.

In El Segundo, Rossbach drove over a spike strip and eventually went up over the curb onto an embankment under the Century (105) Freeway at Sepulveda Boulevard. Officers approached him, but he refused to get out the car.

Intending to shoot him with so-called "less than lethal" beanbag rounds so they could pull him from the car, officer Michael Martinez passed a 12-gauge shotgun to officer Michael Strosnider, who fired and realized the gun was loaded with live ammunition.

Strosnider, now a Redondo police detective, said Tuesday he had no comment.

Most police departments at the time marked their beanbag shotguns with painted rings or colored tape so officers would avoid picking up the wrong weapon.

Since the tragic error, Redondo officers have covered the stocks and forearms of the shotguns with fluorescent orange paint, police Sgt. Phil Keenan said.

Officers now keep the weapons unloaded, loading them only when they need to use them, he said. The shells are made of clear plastic so officers can see the beanbags inside.

Other police departments throughout the region followed suit and changed their policies after the Redondo accident.

Rossbach had a long rap sheet. A parole officer said that he was a person who could "never get it together."

Parole officials said Rossbach served time repeatedly in county jails and state prisons for burglary and alcohol-related crimes.

He was arrested in Santa Maria in 2001 for stealing a bicycle from a garage.

A Santa Barbara probation report revealed he was depressed.

In his native Minnesota, records showed he led police on a high-speed chase in Nisswa in 1994. He also served various sentences for possession of stolen property and parole violations.