LOS ANGELES (CNS) – A wrongful death lawsuit brought by the widow of a Transportation Security Administration officer who died in a 2013 shooting at Los Angeles International Airport will have to be shored up in order to proceed, a judge ruled today.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly Fujie said Mary Caruso, the attorney for Ana Machuca, has 20 days to file an amended complaint to show why the city is not immune from the allegations. A section of the state Government Code states that a public entity is immune from liability in lawsuits alleging insufficient police protection.
Lawyer Rodolfo Ruiz, on behalf of the city, argued the case should be dismissed. Machuca, of Porter Ranch, filed the lawsuit in October 2014 on behalf of herself and her two children, naming as defendants Los Angeles World Airports, which operates LAX, along with the Los Angeles Airport Police, city of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police and Fire departments and Los Angeles County.
Gerardo Hernandez was shot to death and three other people — including two other TSA officers — were wounded when a gunman opened fire on Nov. 1, 2013, inside Terminal 3 at LAX. Machuca contends her husband\’s death, allegedly at the hands of Paul Anthony Ciancia, could have been avoided. Caruso argued that the civil case is less about providing insufficient police protection as it is with such problems at LAX that day as 12 inoperable panic buttons and outdated 911 “red phones.\’\’ Caruso also said that although the city had allocated $49 million a year earlier to increase security personnel, the money was diverted elsewhere.
But in her three-page ruling, Fujie said the suit\’s allegations do not support the plaintiff\’s argument that the lack of other protective measures cited caused Hernandez\’s death. “(Hernandez) could have been protected only by the deployment of
sufficient security forces to prevent Ciancia from bringing or discharging his gun into the airport,\’\’ Fujie wrote.
Ciancia, 25, is facing a possible death sentence if convicted of killing Hernandez, the first TSA agent to die in the line of the duty since the agency was founded after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.