Officer Whitfield was shot twice during the North Hollywood shootout and should be honored.

oh boy, here we go.

Good idea.

You contact him and see if he's amiable to the idea.

Then scout around for someone to get a good custom-made job for him. Real nice like.  

Maybe a nice case to go with it. Don't forget that when you're making arrangements for all this. And setup a separate account so those interested can send their money when you got all the details in order.

Good to see you taking the lead on this. No don't be a putz and drop the ball on this one [b]Imbro[/b]. You'll look pretty foolish.

I second the motion!

OK, I'll bite... what did this [b]individual[/b] officer do to deserve your sarcasm, besides of course, getting himself shot while trying to stop two scumbag bank robbers???

Yup.. it's great having Imbro back. [rolleyes]

Martin Whitfield:  Martin joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1989.  After completing the LAPD seven (7) month academy he spent his probationary period in South-Central Los Angeles.  During his career with the Department Martin was fortunate to have been given special assignments in other divisions of the police department.  He worked with Homicide, Robbery, Burglary, Narcotics and Vice.  During the Rodney King riots and the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, Martin was assigned to specialized units dealing with these events.

On February 28, 1997, Martin was involved in the North Hollywood Shoot-out and was critically injured.  As a result of his injuries Martin was never able to return back to work and has since been retired from the Department on a medical pension.  In 1998 Martin and his family moved to Indianapolis, his hometown where he attended high school.  Since retirement Martin has dedicated much of his time researching the psychological and physical affects of critical police incidents.  He has been actively involved in publicly speaking about his own career ending injuries in many forums.  He is especially delighted to give his presentation to active police officers.

Since retirement Martin has worked for the Indiana Civil Rights Commission investigating fair-housing issues throughout the state of Indiana.  In addition to this, he has been attending Indiana University at Indianapolis pursuing certification in computer programming and data base administration.

Before joining the LAPD Martin served in the U. S. Navy.  His primary duty was four (4) years aboard the USS Missouri BB63 (battleship). While in the Navy, he held numerous jobs from navigating at the helm of the 887 foot ship to manning its’ 16 inch mounted gun turrets. The Navy provided Martin the opportunity to see outside of Indiana as I completed two World-cruises.  
[url]http://www.alets.com/Instructors/Martin.htm[/url]
[size=4]Imbro, dont be an ass. Oh wait, nevermind, I'm too late.[/size=4]

Whoever banned you the first/second/third time should be honored.

Me too

Hmm...blatant trolling......again.......

Why were you unlocked again?

[peep]

I'm sorry. I forgot that neo-cons have the memory span of slugs and are inept at search engine utilization.

[url=www.law.com/regionals/ca/opinions/supremecourt/appeal00/b134247.html]MARTIN WHITFIELD, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. HECKLER & KOCH, INC., Defendant and Respondent.[/url]

[url=www.gunlawsuits.org/features/headline/2000.asp]California Supreme Court Takes Whitfield v. Heckler & Koch Case[/url]

Okay, I read some of the links provided and I, uh, I mean...

Oh yeah, I sure would hate to get shot by a .803 caliber rifle.

What were we talking about?

Since I can't use a search engine either, would ya' mind telling me what the heck a neo con is?

Is it supposed to mean new conservative?

Please teach me.


Edited 'cause I'm a dumbass.

MARTIN WHITFIELD, Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.

HECKLER & KOCH, INC., Defendant and Respondent.


No. B134247

In the Court of Appeal of the State of California

Second Appellate District

Division Four

(Super. Ct. No. EC023122)

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, David M. Schacter, Judge. Affirmed.


COUNSEL
McNicholas & McNicholas, John P. McNicholas and Matthew S. McNicholas for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Holland & Knight, Charles L. Coleman III, Mark L. Venardi and Kimberly A. Gershon for Defendant and Respondent.

Filed August 9, 2000


Appellant Martin Whitfield is a Los Angeles police officer badly injured in a shootout with Emil Matasareanu and Larry Phillips, Jr., in front of the North Hollywood Branch of the Bank of America on February 28, 1997. Being heavily armed and attired in full body armor, Matasareanu and Phillips were able to hold off police officers for a considerable period of time while inflicting injury on police officers and civilians alike. Respondent Heckler & Koch, Inc., is one of ten named defendants alleged to have manufactured, distributed, marketed, or sold one or more of the weapons used by Matasareanu and Phillips in the shootout. The trial court sustained respondent' s demurrer to the second amended complaint.

Although respondent' s product was not defective in the usual sense, [b]appellant asks that we adopt a new theory of liability to cover products which are unflawed in manufacture or design but which are so potentially dangerous that they should not be offered for sale to the general public[/b] unless the manufacturer is willing to internalize the cost of all injuries which result from the product' s misuse. Failing that, appellant urges that traditional product liability and negligence theories be interpreted expansively to cover manufacture of certain types of legally produced firearms. We believe it would be unwise to adopt a broad new theory of recovery which would ultimately make courts and juries the arbiters of the merit of every consumer product in the market. We further believe such issues should be resolved by the appropriate legislative bodies. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court' s order.


FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The Allegations of the Complaint
For purposes of this appeal from an order sustaining a demurrer without leave to amend, we accept the allegations of the complaint as true. In his second amended complaint, the operative complaint for purposes of this appeal, appellant alleged that among the various weapons used by Matasareanu and Phillips was a "Heckler & Koch .308 caliber semiautomatic assault rifle, model 91, with drum magazine" (hereafter HK .308).[FOOTNOTE 1] The weapons were allegedly used in their attempted robbery of the bank and their attempt to escape, during which nine police officers and two civilians were shot. Appellant was one of the first officers to arrive at the scene. One of the two assailants, believed to be Phillips, fired at appellant using one of the assault weapons and armor piercing bullets.[FOOTNOTE 2] Appellant ducked behind his patrol car, but was nonetheless struck in the left forearm and left buttock, the bullet which injured his forearm having first traveled through the engine block, transmission, and body of the patrol car. After sustaining these injuries, appellant attempted to reposition himself behind a row of trees, and was shot in the right femur, the lesser trochanter, and the upper torso. As a result of these injuries, appellant has become permanently disabled.

According to the complaint, the weaponry with which Matasareanu and Phillips were armed allowed them to fire at rates in excess of 100 shots per minute, and a total of more than 1,200 rounds during the standoff.

The causes of action directed against respondent and the other gun manufacturers and distributors are for ultrahazardous products liability, strict product liability, negligent design product liability, and negligence. The ultrahazardous products liability cause of action, which the complaint conceded has yet to be judicially recognized, alleged that respondent and other defendants "designed, developed, sold, manufactured, warranted, advertised, delivered, marketed, and caused to be transported in interstate commerce" the firearms described above, as well as high capacity ammunition magazines. It alleged that the products were not abnormally altered beyond what the product manufacturers could reasonably have foreseen and caused a high degree of risk, harm, and serious injury.

cont

The strict liability cause of action alleged that the weapons possessed defects in their design, development, manufacture, and distribution and that their use was reasonably foreseeable. The negligent design cause of action alleges that defendants were negligent in the design, development, manufacture, and distribution of the weapons and "their component parts, accessories, ammunition, enhancements, and paraphernalia," including failure to implement safety designs that would have prevented Matasareanu and Phillips from using and firing their weapons if acquired illegally.

The cause of action for negligence contends that respondent and other similarly situated defendants negligently distributed and delivered their products, including weapons, enhancements, spare parts, ammunition, and other paraphernalia without concern as to who would receive or purchase such products and "negligently flooded the market with their products allowing and/or assuring that they would be obtained illegally and by people engaged in the illegal gun market and by people engaged in crime." This cause of action further alleged that respondent and other similarly situated defendants were negligent for failing to monitor distribution or institute safeguards to prevent unlawful sales and for failing to use safety designs or features that would have prevented the use of their weapons by individuals who purchased the weapons illegally. These safety features were alleged to include "certain magnetically encoded bracelets or rings that must be worn by the user or the gun will not work."


The Demurrer and Proposed Amendments
Respondent demurred to the second amended complaint on the grounds that the firefighter' s rule precluded recovery by an injured police officer under these circumstances; section 1714.4, subdivision (b)(2) of the Civil Code precludes recovery for strict product liability; and the cause of action for design defect was uncertain. In his opposition, appellant contended that the firearm was specifically designed to handle ammunition that could penetrate all known police body armor and to fire rounds faster than any human could continuously squeeze the trigger, and designed so that it could easily be converted into a fully automatic weapon.

At oral argument, counsel for appellant conceded that the weapon had been legally purchased in Maryland. At the time it was purchased, weapons of its type were not banned in California. Appellant acknowledged it was modified by someone other than respondent after sale to make it fully automatic.

After oral argument, appellant asked the court to consider certain new allegations as if they had been included in the second amended complaint.[FOOTNOTE 3] In these additional paragraphs, appellant alleged he was unaware that Matasareanu and Phillips were armed with automatic or semiautomatic weapons, and that because of his lack of awareness he pulled his car within 100 feet of the bank' s entrance and stood behind it for protection. The new paragraphs stated that, when they saw the police, Matasareanu and Phillips abandoned their plan to rob the bank "and undertook the completely new and separate task of creating this country' s largest single military style shoot-out ever attempted against police officers. The goal of this new plan, which greatly enhanced the risk on the scene and, in fact, created entirely new risks, was to shoot, maim and kill as many police officers and civilians as possible with their massive firepower . . . ." The new paragraphs attempt to place the blame for this new plan on respondent' s "superior military weaponry" -- "[s]uch gun was designed to fire bullets faster than any human being could ever squeeze-and-release the trigger. Such gun was also designed as a military weapon to be used to suppress all small arms fire, penetrate all known body armor, and control the military battle field in hand-to-hand combat settings. [¶ ] . . . [It] was also designed to be extremely accurate at distance, and built with very exacting specifications to be a superior piece of equipment[,] . . . designed to be used in a para-military or military setting, [and] was designed to be modified into a fully automatic weapon, and . . . kill as many people as possible in the shortest period of time."

The proposed amendments further state

The VPC link states "November 20, 2000, California
California Supreme Court Takes Whitfield v. Heckler & Koch Case", yet I can't find any evidence that they ever actually heard the case.

All the search hits for this case date back to 2000.  Three years later, and no decision???

Maybe VPC's info was wrong.  Imagine that!!!

BTW Imbro, would it have killed you to state up front who Martin Whitfield is???

Wow, at least cluster gets it. Whitfield hopped on the gun manufacturer lawsuit band wagon. Does that make you want to give money so the guy gets a rifle? I hope not. When the guy was holding press conferences condemning HK it was a REALLY BIG DEAL on arfcom. I guess maybe back then people were able to think on their own instead of taking everything they read here as written in stone gospel.

One point that kay9 made for me was that people are so desperate to find heroes that they will "overlook" certain things as long as there is a military record involved.

Well, like I stated before, when Whitfield filed his lawsuit it was thoroughly discussed on arfcom. But I guess people don't want to remember things like that.

I hear crickets.. do you hear crickets ?

I dont think anyone is desparate to find heroes. His actions on a very trying day proved to me what he was. What he did later is and was a shame, but it went nowhere anyhow.

Nevertheless, he saved lives on that day.

Jealous?

He has nothing I want so why should I be jealous.

It will have to be a bolt-action.

Did some digging.  The lawsuit was dismissed on 10/24/01.

[url]http://www.law.com/regionals/ca/opinions/supremecourt/reviewsgranted-civ.shtml[/url]

Whitfield v. Heckler & Koch, Inc.
S091584 (B134247; 82 Cal.App.4th 1200)
Petition for review after the Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in a civil action. Issues presented in this case include whether a plaintiff should be able to plead that a gun manufacturer has a duty under negligence law to act reasonably in manufacturing, marketing and distributing military weaponry to the general public. 11/15/00
Read the Case Summary
Read the Court of Appeal Opinion
Update: Review dismissed on 10/24/01.

Good. You learn more when you do something yourself, don't you?

Quit thinking about the past, this is about giving someone a rifle.

What color furniture?

I dunno if you're kidding or not but that comment cracked me up.

Absolutely!  That’s why I stopped listening to TV & Radio news a few years ago.  I prefer to get my information from multiple sources on the Net and “overlay” them.  It tends to filter out the blatant bullshit quite quickly.

That’s why you have value to us here.

[;D]

It doesn't list his family dog kill count, did you manage to get that ????? [:)]

He IS as deserving as others that have been "honored"...........

LOL
Maybe Imbrog will have his 10/22 and 38 laser etched in some nice sentiment and present them....as a token of his respect...

Posted by the biggest attention whore on the web...


No... I think it is more likely that most of the people who post here have lives outside of the internet, and can't afford to obsess over  minutia like the exact name of someone who filed a particular anti gun lawsuit back in the late 1990's.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm about to meet my beautiful wife for lunch. It's such a nice day here in NY, it would be a shame not to eat outside. Then it's off to buy a new coffee maker, followed by a trip to the bookstore. After that, we will catch a flick.

Ahhh... real life. You should try it some time Imbro.

Ahh yes, the arbitrary ad hominem.

Is full-auto still down ?

I think I hear bog calling you......

people.
im sorry to say this.
you got owned by imbroglio...

he "snared a trap" and you all fell in it...

dont piss and moan beacuse you fell into it!

be smarter next time...
i happened to look up this asshat's name in Google and remebered his transgressions from back in the early ARFCOM days. knowing full well that imbroglio likes to play these kind fo games, i did myself a favor and save myself from having egg on my face.

suck it up, and move on.

this POS Whitfield is a scumbag pure and simple. he was suing H&K for making a gun that was... deadly??!!

suckers.  

what, no response.
ha.

imbroglio, i normally think that you are somewhat annoying and not all that clever, but you did well on this one.

my $.02

Neo-con Fed.

Martin Whitfield is nothing more than a whiny ass pussy bitch.
He wanted to be a cop, nobody forced him into it.
Cops get shot at. They know of this possibility well before they decide to join.
Sure enough, he got shot. Lawsuits and placing blame are a sign of stupidity on his part.
My only regret is that he survived the incident. Fuck him and his bullshit!
I see him as an antigun crusader and I hope he lives in agony to this very day!

[;D]I intentionally search for the word "Imbroglio" cause the posts humor me something fierce.  It's like watching a Venus Fly Trap, literally.

I'm just proud to be part of the team.  Cheers.
[beer]

But seriously...what color furniture?  I'm partial to Electric Blue.

naw but he might be able to get a neat antler ceiling fan cheap.  It's only been taken out of the box once for an OHMIGAWD It's hideous inspection.

[LOL] you crack me up Seth!....

But we all should remmember....

As long as Imbroglio makes it home safe every night!......

Whitfield..."Why are these guys shooting at me?"
DA