"I think murder is what occurred." The family of a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer killed during a training exercise is suing the department for wrongful death. The officer, Houston Tipping, was 32 years old; he died during a Los Angeles Police Academy bicycle training exercise last May. The family's lawyer now says one of the other officers involved in the exercise was under investigation for sexual assault—and that Tipping had taken the incident report.
"I'm certainly alleging that at least one officer engaged in an abuse of force in order to try and scare or harm Officer Tipping in order to prevent him from investigating a claim of rape," the lawyer, Bradley Gage,
said at a Monday press conference.
According to Gage, Tipping had been searching for a job outside of the LAPD at the time of his death. The training at which he sustained injuries "was supposed to be bicycle training," but somehow wound up entailing the "grappling exercise" that the LAPD says killed him.
Tipping's mother, Shirley Huffman, claims in her complaint that Tipping died during an exercise meant to "to simulate a mob" attack. The complaint alleges that Tipping's death was the product of "intentional acts."
But a county medical examiner
ruled Tipping's death an accident, saying the suspicious injuries revealed in the autopsy were sustained during attempts to save his life.
"Officer Tipping did not sustain any laceration to the head" and "was also not struck or beaten during this training session," Police Chief Michel Moore
told the LAPD Board of Police Commissioners in June. "He did grapple with another officer, and both fell to the ground, resulting in a catastrophic injury to his spinal cord."
Gage claims that Tipping wound up with three broken ribs, a lacerated liver, head injuries, and a broken neck. "His heart eventually stopped working because of his injuries" and "he was paralyzed….He had subdural hematomas at three places on the left side and three places on the right side. There is no way that grappling would have caused those injuries the way the LAPD portrayed it."
Gage also offered startling new allegations at yesterday's press conference.
"In July 2021, four police officers were involved in the sexual assault of a woman in the Los Angeles area," Gage
said. "A report was taken by officer Tipping, and I've seen that report. And…the female victim claimed that she was raped by four different people, all LAPD officers."
The name of one of the officers accused of rape "seems to correlate with one of the officers that was at the bicycle training," said Gage, alleging that the officer in question was the one who hurt Tipping.
Gage could not confirm that the officer accused of rape was the officer directly engaged in the training exercise with Tipping. But he
said "our investigation indicates that yes, it was." He added that the LAPD said no video footage of the training exercise exists, even though these sorts of trainings are often recorded.
In response to questions from a reporter, Gage said he thinks "murder is what occurred."
You can watch Gage's whole press conference
here.
reason.com
