Reginald Denny never received a settlement from the City of Los Angeles. He filed a $40 million federal civil rights lawsuit against the city, former Police Chief Daryl Gates, and other LAPD officials after being beaten nearly to death at Florence and Normandie during the 1992 riots, but a district court dismissed the case on summary judgment and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that dismissal in 1998. No damages were awarded, and no settlement was paid.
What Denny Sued the City For
Denny filed his initial claim against Los Angeles in late 1992, the standard prerequisite to a federal suit. Three co-plaintiffs eventually joined him: Wanda Harris, whose 15-year-old son was killed during the unrest; Fidel Lopez, a motorist beaten at the same intersection; and Takao Hirata, another motorist attacked nearby.
The plaintiffs brought their claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985. Their core theory was a Fourteenth Amendment equal protection violation: they alleged the LAPD deliberately pulled officers out of a minority neighborhood as the riots began while continuing to protect predominantly white parts of the city. In February 1994, U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. dismissed the plaintiffs’ due process claim but let the equal protection theory move forward, ruling they would have to prove police withdrew specifically because of the neighborhood’s racial makeup.
That proof never materialized. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, finding no evidence of racially discriminatory intent behind LAPD deployment decisions. Denny and his co-plaintiffs appealed.
Why the Ninth Circuit Rejected the Case
In 1998, a Ninth Circuit panel affirmed the dismissal in Harris v. Gates, 145 F.3d 1338. The court held that the plaintiffs had not produced evidence from which any jury could conclude that the police absence from Florence and Normandie was motivated by race.
The panel found that the record supported several non-discriminatory explanations for what happened, including “poor preparation,” “massive leadership failure,” uncertainty about whether aggressive enforcement would help or hurt, and officers simply being overwhelmed. Statistical comparisons the plaintiffs offered, including fewer arrests in the predominantly minority 77th Street Division than in the “predominantly Anglo” Valley Bureau, were not enough to show discriminatory intent.
The court also excluded a central piece of the plaintiffs’ evidence: a declaration from policing expert James Fyfe asserting that race motivated the deployment failures. The panel ruled that opinion “conclusory” and without foundation in specific facts, making it inadmissible at summary judgment. Older evidence of LAPD misconduct, including past comments by Chief Gates and the department’s excessive-force history, was rejected as irrelevant. That evidence, the court noted, pointed to “excessive police aggression, not inadequate police aggression.”
With the case dismissed on appeal, the federal litigation ended. None of the four plaintiffs received a settlement or damages award from the city.
How Denny’s Outcome Compared With Rodney King’s
The failure of Denny’s lawsuit stands in sharp contrast to the civil case brought by Rodney King, whose beating by LAPD officers had triggered the riots. In April 1994, a federal jury awarded King $3,816,535.45 in compensatory damages from the City of Los Angeles, covering medical expenses, pain and suffering, and lost income. The city had admitted liability at the start of that trial. King’s lawyers had sought $15 million; the city initially offered $800,000, followed by a counter-offer of $1.25 million.
The difference between the two outcomes was legal, not moral. King’s case rested on the straightforward claim that city employees directly caused his injuries. Denny’s case required proving something considerably harder: that the police absence at Florence and Normandie was the product of intentional racial discrimination. The Ninth Circuit concluded the evidence could not carry that burden.
How Denny’s Medical Bills Were Covered
Because the lawsuit failed, none of Denny’s recovery costs were paid by the city. His injuries were severe. Dr. Paul Toffel, the surgeon who performed reconstructive surgery at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood, later testified that Denny had a large depressed skull fracture, a life-threatening blood clot between his skull and brain, and roughly 100 facial fractures. His left eye had been displaced three-quarters of an inch behind his cheekbone and required a plastic implant. He remained in a coma for two days after surgery and later developed blood clots in his leg and lungs.
Reports at the time described his medical bills as “skyrocketing.” Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital set up a Patient Assistance Fund for uninsured riot victims and received thousands of checks earmarked for Denny, though officials declined to disclose the total collected. A fundraising event at Hollywood Park generated $25,000 including corporate matching gifts, and a West Hollywood comedy club fundraiser was expected to bring in up to $15,000. The hospital treated 266 people for riot-related injuries and estimated that roughly 75 percent lacked private health insurance. No public accounting of Denny’s final medical total, or how the balance was ultimately covered, appears in the available record.
The physical toll persisted for years. As of a 2002 interview, Denny had permanent nerve damage, impaired vision, and constant ringing in his ears. He could no longer drive trucks professionally, the career he had held before the attack. He eventually moved to Lake Havasu, Arizona, where he worked as a boat motor mechanic and later at an industrial supply store.
Whether the Attackers Paid Restitution
The criminal cases against Denny’s attackers did not translate into meaningful compensation either. Damian “Football” Williams, convicted only of simple mayhem and four misdemeanor assault counts after being acquitted of the most serious charges, received the maximum ten-year sentence for those convictions and was released after roughly four years. Henry Keith Watson pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor assault against Denny and one felony assault against another victim; he was sentenced to time served of about a year and a half, three years of probation, 320 hours of community service, and restitution to his victims. The restitution amount was never specified publicly, and whether any of it was ever paid to Denny is not reflected in the available record.
Antoine Miller’s case was separated from the main trial and resolved with a plea bargain that produced probation. Lance Jerome Parker was convicted in May 1994 of shooting into Denny’s unoccupied truck and misdemeanor vandalism, and received three years of probation and 100 hours of community service.
Between the dismissed lawsuit against the city and the criminal outcomes that produced no documented payment to him, Denny was left to rely on donations and fundraising for the costs of a beating that nearly killed him. The legal system that produced a multimillion-dollar civil award for Rodney King produced nothing for the truck driver pulled from his cab at Florence and Normandie.