A Los Angeles Police Department officer died after he was supposedly dropped on his head by a fellow cop during a training exercise in May. But what was reported as a tragic, on-duty accident was actually retaliation for the officer’s efforts to break the so-called “Blue Wall of Silence,” a lawsuit filed by his family last week alleges.
The family for the late officer Houston Tipping says that the department and the city allowed him to teach a class with a reputation for being physical, without a supervisor, with officers he’d been actively investigating over allegations of sexual assault. The department, the family says, should have suspended the officers long before their son died in their hands.
“One of those individuals who is alleged to have committed the sexual assault is believed to be the same individual that is responsible for the injuries that led to the death of Officer Tipping,” Bradley Gage, an attorney for Tipping’s mother said during a press conference Friday. The individual is referred to as “Officer David C” in the lawsuit, which was filed against the police department and the city in Los Angeles County Court.
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“It smacks of a cover-up,” Gage said. The lawsuit also points out the LAPD’s recent history of cover-ups and tolerance for misconduct, including involvement in covering for disgraced CBS executive Leslie Moonves.
On May 29, 2022, Tipping died from a spinal cord injury after teaching a multi-day training program about using bicycles for crowd control. While the officer alledgedly dropping Tipping may explain that injury, he also suffered broken ribs two days before his death, a collapsed lung, liver damage, brain bleeding, and a head laceration that required six staples at the time of his death.
The LAPD initially blamed Tipping’s injured liver injury and broken ribs on an automatic CPR machine known as a LUCAS device. But medical records obtained by the family’s legal team shows the device, which can break a person’s ribs in order to save their life, was attached to the officer but never actually activated.
Additionally, officers in the training weren’t wearing protective padding meant to prevent broken ribs and injuries to internal organs like the liver, according to the lawsuit.
The legal team has requested video footage of the training, as the LAPD has access to surveillance footage at the training center in Elysian Park Academy where Tipping died. But the department says that the footage doesn’t exist, despite there being a precedent for training sessions being recorded.
An investigative report filed in the ongoing probe also shows that Tipping wasn’t the only officer looking into the alleged sexual assault. At least one other officer, who’s name isn’t revealed in documents obtained by Tipping’s legal team, spoke with the victim before it was filed to their superior officers.
‘“After Officer Tipping reported the sexual assault, there was a detective that tried to follow-up with the victim in order to find out about the claim,” Gage said. “That’s important because it demonstrates that Officer Tipping provided information about the sexual assault allegedly done by other police officers to the higher-ups in the department.”
The accused officers, however, were not relieved of duty but allowed to interact with their investigating officer directly. That, combined with the reputation of the training he was put in charge of, created “a perfect storm” that allowed retaliation against Tipping, his family alleges.
“The LAPD created the perfect opportunity to make Officer Tipping the victim of intentional acts of aggression,” the lawsuit states. “Officer C knew or should have known that the arrest and control bicycle training program would be the perfect opportunity to seek retaliation via willful and unprovoked physical acts of aggression.”
The lawsuit accuses the city, the department and the officers of battery, retaliation against a whistleblower, violating Tipping’s civil rights, and asks for compensatory damages and a trial in Tipping’s death.
When reached for comment, an LAPD spokesperson told VICE News that it would not comment on pending litigation.
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