Los Angeles County faces two lawsuits connected to last year’s shootings at a fire station that killed a firefighter and wounded a captain in attack investigators said stemmed from a longstanding job-related dispute.
Firefighter Jonathan Tatone killed colleague Tory Carlon and then shot Capt. Arnoldo Sandoval, who was trying to intervene, at the Agua Dulce station last June. Tatone later set his home on fire and apparently killed himself, sheriff’s officials said.
Carlon’s widow filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the county and the gunman’s estate, alleging that Tatone’s “dangerous conduct” was known to fire officials for years, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Sandoval brought a separate suit alleging assault and battery against the county and Tatone’s estate, and negligence against the county.
Both cases were filed last week and seek unspecified damages, the Times reported Monday.
“Tatone worked as a firefighter engineer and for years had clearly demonstrated to fire department leadership that he was unstable mentally and was a dangerous condition to those around him,” according to the complaint in the Carlon family’s suit.
The county had no comment on pending litigation, said Michael Wilson, a spokesman for the LA County chief executive’s office.
A representative of Tatone’s estate could not be reached for comment by the Times.
Topics Lawsuits
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.