{"id":186565,"date":"2026-02-20T21:06:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/186565\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T21:06:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:06:06","slug":"3-5-million-wrongful-death-verdict-against-buena-park-police-is-overturned-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/186565\/","title":{"rendered":"$3.5 million wrongful-death verdict against Buena Park police is overturned \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

A $3.5 million wrongful-death verdict<\/a> in favor of the mother of a 19-year-old man<\/a> fatally shot by Buena Park police has been overturned on appeal, according to court records.<\/p>\n

The Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed the verdict and sent the case back to the lower court on Tuesday, Feb. 17, because the judge that presided over the trial relied on the wrong legal standard.<\/p>\n

Deanna Sullivan sued the city and police officers Bobby Colon and Jennifer Tran for the death of her son, David Patrick Sullivan, during an Aug. 19, 2019, traffic stop.<\/p>\n

Jurors were instructed by Orange County Superior Court Judge Lee L. Gabriel \u201con legal standards applicable to a police officer\u2019s use of deadly force that were not in effect in California until after the incident occurred,\u201d according to the ruling.<\/p>\n

The shooting was captured on Colon\u2019s body-worn camera, the appellate justices said.<\/p>\n

Colon pulled over the Range Rover Sullivan was driving, and Sullivan told him he didn\u2019t have his driver\u2019s license on him and was borrowing his cousin\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n

Colon said the car\u2019s registration had expired and asked Sullivan to get out so he could scan the vehicle identification number.<\/p>\n

Colon went back to his police car and gave the VIN to dispatchers, who told him the Range Rover was reported stolen, according to the appellate ruling.<\/p>\n

When Colon and Tran told Sullivan to get out of the Range Rover, he put it in reverse, prompting the officers to order him out again, according to the ruling.<\/p>\n

Sullivan accelerated, knocked over a palm tree, and slammed into a car, halting it as Colon approached with his weapon drawn, the justices said.<\/p>\n

Sullivan got out of the SUV and started running toward Colon and then toward a parking lot, the justices ruled. Colon opened fire on Sullivan, who was unarmed, as he ran.<\/p>\n

A bullet ripped through Sullivan\u2019s heart, killing him.<\/p>\n

Jurors were instructed on a law that became effective in January 2020 that \u201csubstantially restricted a police officer\u2019s use of deadly force by creating a standard that made use of deadly force unlawful unless it was \u2018necessary\u2019 and there were no feasible alternatives,\u201d the justices wrote in the ruling.<\/p>\n

The justices left it to the lower court to determine which legal standards should be applied in a retrial.<\/p>\n

The jury assigned 58% of the fault for the shooting to Sullivan and 42% to the officers.<\/p>\n

Southern California News Group reporter Sean Emery contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A $3.5 million wrongful-death verdict in favor of the mother of a 19-year-old man fatally shot by Buena…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1312,723,100],"class_list":{"0":"post-186565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-crime","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}