Parents of Slain Officer Awarded $1.125 Million : Courts: A jury concludes that a Torrance sports store was negligent in leaving the murder weapon--a loaded gun--on a rack.

Citing the negligence of a Torrance sporting goods store, a Superior Court jury awarded $1.125 million Thursday to the parents of a police officer killed in 1986 by a man who used a loaded M-1 carbine rifle he seized from a rack in the store.

The parents of Tom Keller had contended the Torrance Sport Shop was negligent by keeping the loaded high-powered rifle accessible.

“It took us five years to make our point that my son would be alive today if it weren’t for the negligence of the Torrance sporting goods store,” Eleanor Keller said Thursday.

“Somebody,” she said, “had to stop and say, ‘Look, how can a sporting goods store that deals with selling baseball equipment to young kids, high school gym clothes, etc., have all these weapons, just on a rack for anyone to use?’ ”

The Norwalk Superior Court jury deliberated for two days before making the award to Max and Eleanor Keller of Goleta.

Nathan B. Hoffman, who represents the sports shop and co-owner Gary Burnham, said the verdict would be appealed. The jury did not find that Burnham was negligent.

Hoffman had argued that the gunman--not the sports shop--was responsible for Keller’s death.

Keller was 25 when he was shot April 17, 1986, by Rafael Hernandez Navarro at the now-closed shop at 1421 Marcelina Ave.

Navarro had burst into the shop waving a pistol and demanding ammunition. During a police siege, he grabbed the M-1 carbine and shot Keller, who was outside. Then, wounded by police, Navarro shot himself in the heart with the carbine.

Keller was considered a “rising star” in the Torrance Police Department, said his parents’ attorney, Browne Greene: “He was an outgoing, nice guy. He wanted to be a police officer ever since he was a kid.”

Greene contended that the carbine should not have been left unlocked. Three concealed handguns were available for store clerks to use for protection, Greene said. He also maintained that the shop owners were in contact with police while Navarro was in the store, and that they could have done more to warn police that an M-1 carbine was accessible.

Greene sought damages ranging from $500,000 to $3.5 million, and the award will exceed $1.125 million when interest is computed.

Hoffman argued that it was not negligent for the store to keep a weapon for security. The shop owners did “what every good citizen should do” by getting customers out of the store and advising police what was happening, Hoffman said.

“We maintain my clients acted prudently and not negligently,” Hoffman said. In fact, he said, “I think my clients were heroes.”

Hoffman also cited the so-called “fireman’s rule,” which he said has been articulated in numerous court decisions. The rule prevents firefighters or police officers from recovering damages when they knowingly accept a risk, he said.

The jury foreman, Joseph Gutierrez of Long Beach, said in an interview Thursday that jurors wrestled long and hard with the question of the store’s negligence, but concluded the rifle was “negligently maintained” by the shop. The jury also felt the shooting was an exception to the fireman’s rule, which might have applied if Navarro had killed Keller with the pistol he carried into the store, Gutierrez said.