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# Jury clears officer of wrongdoing in fatal shooting
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/jury-clears-officer-of-wrongdoing-in-fatal-shooting/
- Published: 2003-02-21T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T01:38:34.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Jurors follow parameters of law, rule in favor of officer*

*By DAVE DANFORTH Daily Press Staff Writer*

A Santa Monica jury Thursday exonerated a Los Angeles policeman in the fatal shooting of an actor at a Halloween party, finding he acted reasonably in entering the costume party on a night which ended with his mistaking the actor’s replica gun for the real thing.

The case was brought by William Frey, 27, and Jeffrey Denton, 36, who were standing with actor Anthony Dwain Lee in a private room when Lee was fatally shot by officer Tarriel Hopper, a three-year LAPD officer who had gone to the Benedict Canyon mansion on a noise complaint. The episode gained national attention after the Oct. 28, 2000 episode. A widely-watched wrongful death case brought by Lee’s family was settled before the trial.

Denton escaped injury, while Frey was hit by glass from the shattered pains through which Hopper fired nine shots in the space of 1.86 seconds at a distance of six feet. Hopper said he acted as his training dictated after he saw the gun pointed at him through the door. Four shots hit Lee in the back — a fact LAPD critics have stressed. Hopper has said that Lee may have turned quickly during the incident, but that he was concentrating on the gun pointed at him.

Frey and Denton, both at the time aspiring actors, claimed Hopper never had permission to enter the mansion grounds. They sued for negligence, civil rights violations, and assault and battery. They claimed they were devastated emotionally by the shooting. But the case was an uphill battle from the start, with attorney Josh Haffner conceding it has been difficult to sue police, particularly in the post-Sept. 11 environment.

The jury split 10-2 in Hopper’s favor on the key question of whether he was negligent by failing to gain clear permission to enter the mansion from a security guard at the party. The panel was split on the civil rights question, but was unanimous in Hopper’s favor in the assault and battery allegations arising from the shooting. It would have taken at least a 9-3 vote against Hopper for the plaintiffs to win damages.

“If someone had said to Hopper ‘stop,’ that would have completely changed the issue,” one juror said. Hopper’s partner, Natalie Humpherys, said she didn’t hear Webster consent to police entering the costume party. Hopper, however, said Webster shrugged and gestured at the party when asked where he could find the home’s owner.

“A wave-up could have implied consent,” said one juror in noting that Frey and Denton hadn’t proven their case. “It was unclear if he had permission.” The juror said the right to privacy — a key issue for Frey and Denton — didn’t figure heavily into the panel’s thinking.

The juror suggested Lee’s estate could have been sued because Lee’s waving the gun sparked the episode — an argument made by LAPD lawyer Cory Brente at the trial. That juror also pointed out that the gun, a movie prop for a Magnum.357, could easily have fooled Hopper from a distance of six feet.

36E,“It was a very finely detailed black plastic replica,” said the juror. “You could tell it wasn’t real if you got close, like three feet, but not from (the six feet) where the officer was.”

> “It was a very finely detailed black plastic replica.You could tell it wasn’t real if you got close, like three feet, but not from (the six feet) where the officer was.” — – JUROR

Still, that juror, groping for a lesson from the tragedy, suggested that party hosts leave clear instructions denying police entry on a noise complaint, and handle matters outside — a procedure suggested by a police report subsequent to the episode.

“This security guard probably makes minimum wage. He’s out there on a cold October night in a jacket stamped ‘Security.’ He’s not going to say ‘no’ to the police. That’s not really security. That’s like a scarecrow,” he said.

Another juror sympathized with Frey and Denton, telling their lawyers, “We really wished we could have given them something. We really did. But we couldn’t do it under the framework of the law the judge gave us.”

The jurors, who deliberated five hours after getting the case from Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor, first re-read the jury instructions aloud in the jury room. That led them immediately to the civil rights question — and whether Hopper was properly inside the party when the shooting happened.

Hopper said following the trial that it was difficult for him to talk about the episode, the only case in his six years on the force in which he’s shot someone.

“If you have never been in that situation, there are really no words you can put to it. It’s there forever. You go from fear, thinking someone’s going to kill you to somebody’s dead. We go out there every day and any day we may not come home. It’s tough,” Hopper said.

Hopper said the juror’s suggestion that police be explicitly told to wait outside was a good one.

“I’ve had that happen. It’s their right to have an agent,” he said. “We have to be able to contact them. We knock at the door, so we need a contact to do our job. Someone needs to take responsibility.”

But Hopper was less clear on what would happen if nobody responded to a noise complaint.

“We do what we have to do,” he said. “We don’t go around bullying people. We’re just there to do our job.”

Hopper’s cause was clearly helped by his demeanor on the witness stand. A large black man, he appeared quiet by nature and was described by Brente, his lawyer, as a “teddy bear.”

Lee, who was 39 at the time and also black, had played small television and film roles.

One relative of the plaintiffs who declined to give her name insisted the case was less about money than about reform. “We’re not done,” she said. “There’ll be an appeal. L.A. needs to know.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 21, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022103.pdf?ref=smdp.com)