Kolender, City Eliminated in Klan-Spying Lawsuit

Police Chief Bill Kolender and the city of San Diego did not coerce a former police reserve officer into staying too long in a difficult undercover assignment inside the Ku Klux Klan, a Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday.

Judge Raul Rosado, in dismissing Kolender and the city as defendants in a lawsuit filed by Douglas K. Seymour, said the former reserve officer had not presented enough evidence in the monthlong trial to show that the Police Department and the city had purposely set out to harm him by making him work the undercover detail and causing him emotional problems.

Former Assistant Chief Kenneth O’Brien was earlier dismissed as a defendant, so the remaining defendants in the case are Police Capt. Michael Tyler, Sgt. Ernest Trumper and Detective Rance Zerbe.

Ruling Criticized

“We naturally take exception to the judge’s ruling,” Paul G. Edmonson, one of Seymour’s attorneys, said Tuesday night. “But we think we’re still in good shape.”

He said that the three police officers are being sued both individually and as members of the Police Department, which the attorney said still leaves the city liable for monetary damages if Seymour prevails in the lawsuit.

Closing arguments in the case are expected to be presented this afternoon, and Edmonson said he and his co-counsel, David M. Korrey, are weighing now whether to still ask for as much as $2.5 million in damages.

“That was the number that was tossed out earlier, and it could very well be what we’ll formally ask,” he said.

Seymour is contending that he was recruited by the Police Department for the Klan assignment but that the department later abandoned him after the Klan’s leader, Tom Metzger, accused the department of spying on his 1980 congressional campaign.

Seymour has alleged that Kolender disavowed Seymour’s work infiltrating the Klan, which caused him marital and emotional problems and led to serious business failures for his construction company.

However, defense attorneys have said that the Police Department attempted to remove Seymour from the assignment, but that he insisted on continuing the operation. Kolender testified in the trial that he had little or no recollection of Seymour’s undercover work.