Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: TUE 05/18/2004
Section: A
Page: 14
Edition: 3 STAR
 

City to pay mother of man shot by police

By S.K. BARDWELL
Staff

CORRECTION: This story reported an incorrect age for Houston police officer Mark Prendergast. He is 42. Correction published 5/19/04.

The city of Houston has agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of money to the mother of a man shot to death by an undercover narcotics officer for whom he was an informant in 2000.

Colleen Mahan had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city in the April 19, 2000, shooting of her son, Lanny Blaine Robinson. Mahan said she now plans to seek a criminal investigation into the shooting, using evidence obtained through her lawsuit.

"All along, this case has been about seeking the truth," said Mahan's attorney, Randall Kallinen. "We obtained a lot of information through discovery and depositions. Our next step is to inform the FBI, Texas Rangers and members of Congress" about what was revealed during his investigation, he said.

Kallinen said he also wants to bring the case to the attention of the city and Police Department administrations.

"Now we have a new mayor and police chief, and they need to find out what's going on," he said.

Robinson was 49 when he was shot to death by Houston police Officer Mark Prendergast. Prendergast and his partner, Officer J.D. Cargill, were undercover when they asked Robinson for crack cocaine. Robinson told them he didn't have any, but he agreed to guide them to where they could buy some.

Witnesses said Robinson, an alcoholic and drug user, was so drunk when the officers picked him up that he was unable to walk, and the officers had to help him into the back seat of their unmarked Chevrolet Malibu.

About five minutes later, as Cargill drove north on the Gulf Freeway, Prendergast pulled his 9mm Glock pistol from his waistband and shot Robinson in the head, chest and arm from the front passenger seat.

Prendergast testified in a deposition that he shot Robinson after Robinson pulled a knife and held it to the back of Cargill's head. Cargill testified he never saw the knife, and Robinson 's penknife was later found closed in his pocket.

Police said they believed a plastic-handled steak knife found on the shoulder of the highway about an hour after the shooting was the knife Prendergast saw, although there were no fingerprints or other evidence linking it to Robinson.

To bolster her lawsuit, Mahan hired a police practices expert, whose review of the evidence and HPD's investigation raised a number of questions about the case.

Mahan's lawsuit, filed in April 2002, named the city, the HPD, Prendergast and Cargill as defendants. U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr. later dismissed the lawsuit against the city, the Police Department and Cargill, but ruled that it could continue against Prendergast because evidence produced by Kallinen "calls into question" Prendergast's version of the shooting. The city continued to represent Prendergast, though, and will pay for the settlement of the case against him.

Prendergast, 38 (SEE CORRECTION), is a 22-year veteran of HPD and remains assigned to narcotics.