> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # LAPD trial hinges on entry question - URL: https://www.smdp.com/lapd-trial-hinges-on-entry-question/ - Published: 2003-02-20T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-23T01:38:20.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import *Plaintiffs: Halloween shooting that left actor dead traumatized them* *By DAVE DANFORTH Daily Press Staff Writer* The LAPD negligence trial brought by two men who were with an actor shot dead at an October 2000 Halloween party ended Wednesday with one attorney predicting an “uphill battle” against police. The two plaintiffs, Jeff Denton and William Frey, were standing near Anthony Dwain Lee in a small bedroom at a Benedict Canyon costume party when Lee waved a replica semiautomatic Magnum.357 and was killed by Officer Tarriel Hopper, who thought the weapon was real. The case went to a Santa Monica jury after focusing less on the shooting than on whether Hopper, a three-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, had permission to enter the lavish mansion called “The Castle.” The door to the bedroom — its panes shattered by bullets — stood near the jury as a grim reminder of an episode that gained national attention. The outcome will depend on whom the jury believes should shoulder the responsibility: Hopper for using unreasonable force or entering illegally, or Lee for having raised the replica gun and sparking the deadly episode. Neither Denton nor Frey were injured when Lee was cut down by four of nine shots fired in a space of 1.86 seconds. But they claim post-traumatic stress from the episode has severely affected them and that Hopper violated their civil rights by walking onto the private grounds of the mansion, shining a light into a bedroom and subsequently firing from a distance of six feet. Hopper claimed in testimony that a guard had gestured for him to go inside and look for the owner after he arrived on a “loud party” complaint at about midnight three evenings before Halloween. Consent is one of the necessary elements to overcome the constitutionally-protected right to privacy. Even then, LAPD attorney Corey Brente asserted that there was no such right at the wide-open party because hundreds attended with no armbands or guest list. “This case is about how important the right of someone to keep the government out of their home is,” argued Franklin Ferguson, an associate law professor representing Frey. “This case isn’t about a broken arm or leg, but what if you lose your personality, you lose yourself?” > “This case is about how important the right of someone to keep the government out of their home is. (It) isn’t about a broken arm or leg, but what if you lose your personality, you lose yourself?” — — FRANKLIN FERGUSON Plaintiff’s attorney Frey, 24 at the time, came to Los Angeles to pursue acting, as did Denton, then 33\. Lee was 29 the night he was mistaken for a gunman. Frey left acting after the episode and now drives a beer delivery truck. Denton has remained with an acting career, earning close to $40,000 the year after the episode and maintaining that he used acting to work through his trauma. Brente, arguing for the LAPD and city, insisted Hopper did only as he was trained to do under a police doctrine called I.D.O.L. — immediate defense of life. “Hopper saw a gun drawn at him, and felt the gun was real,” he said. “You fire as long as the threat exists. This isn’t like baseball, where a tie goes to the runner. “Here, if it’s a tie, you’re dead.” But lawyers for Frey and Denton pointed out that Lee was shot four times in the back, and that Hopper’s partner, Natalie Humphreys, testified that she never heard security guard Tremaine Webster give him permission to enter the premises. Humphreys stayed behind while Hopper went into the mansion to look for the owner. Attorney Don Steier argued for Denton that a police report after the episode suggested police should have waited outside for the owner. Steier, waving the report, heatedly questioned Hopper on the stand, but failed to ruffle the officer. “I’ve never seen any wording come down on this,” Hopper testified. When Steier asked Hopper to get up and show jurors where the first shot entered the door, Hopper countered that he couldn’t distinguish the timing of the bullet holes. “Didn’t you see Lee with his back to you?” queried Steier. “My focus was on the gun,” Hopper replied. “The gun was pointed at me.” Lawyers for Frey and Denton charged that Hopper had concocted a “morning-after story” by saying the guard had shrugged and gestured to the house when Hopper asked for the owner. They noted that Hopper, in a report on the episode three months after it happened, never mentioned the security guard. But Brente countered that the attorneys had changed the focus of their case after getting nowhere with the argument that Hopper used unreasonable force in response to what looked like a real gun pointed at him. The focus of their case changed to an assertion that Hopper entered the grounds illegally and should never have been in position to shoot Lee. The guard’s shrug and gesture was as clear a consent as if he’d said “You want him? You go and find him,” Brente told the jury. He also attacked the plaintiffs’ argument that the shooting wouldn’t have taken place had Hopper not walked over to the bedroom and shone his flashlight inside. “The reason the shooting would not have occurred is if someone hadn’t pulled a gun,” he said. Lee, who was slated to play basketball with Frey and Denton the next day, was declared dead at the scene. The actor had small television roles in “E.R.” and “N.Y.P.D. Blue” as well as a part in the 1997 film “Liar, Liar.” His estate hired Johnnie Cochran, who flayed the LAPD in the O.J. Simpson case, to bring a wrongful death case. It was settled before going to trial. The case came under intense scrutiny, on the heels of department brutality and corruption scandals. But, noted Steier, the tables turned to favor police after September 11, 2001. “I think when you sue the police department, it’s an uphill battle,” he said after the six-day trial ended. The jury was set to begin deliberating Thursday morning, with agreement of nine of the twelve required for a verdict. One of the jurors is a police officer, whom plaintiffs’ lawyers tried to have removed during jury selection. But Judge Jacqueline Connor refused, noting he’d said that his police service wouldn’t interfere with his ability to judge the evidence fairly. Lawyers for the two plaintiffs didn’t mention a number when asking the jury for an award. But one, arguing for Denton, asked the jury to set an annual amount for emotional distress and multiply it by 44 — his remaining life expectancy. *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 20, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022003.pdf?ref=smdp.com)