By Greg Moran
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

May 10, 2002

The parents of the Granite Hills High School student who wounded five people in a shooting incident at the school and later committed suicide in jail have filed a claim against the county for $10 million.

The claim, usually a first step toward bringing a lawsuit, was filed with the county April 26 by Ralph Hoffman and Denise Marquez. They are the father and mother of Jason Hoffman, the troubled youth who opened fire March 22, 2001, at the East County school.

Government agencies routinely reject large claims, which sets the stage for a lawsuit to be filed. The county has 45 days to investigate and respond to the claim, which is under review, said Tom Brown, the claims supervisor in the County Counsel's Office.

Three students and two teachers were wounded when Hoffman walked up to the school and opened fire with a shotgun. He was captured after a campus police officer confronted him and shot him in the jaw and buttock.

Hoffman pleaded guilty in September 2001 to premeditated attempted murder and five counts of assault. He faced a sentence of 27 years to life in prison.

However, Hoffman hanged himself in the downtown San Diego jail Oct. 29, about one week before he was scheduled to be sentenced.

The parents' claim, filed by two Los Angeles attorneys, names the county and the Sheriff's Department as defendants. It says the Sheriff's Department had a responsibility to care for Hoffman and failed.

That failure was made all the worse, the claim says, because jail officials were aware that Hoffman was suicidal and that he had been placed on a suicide watch for a period of time before taking his life.

The family is claiming wrongful death and, when a suit is filed, expects to allege Hoffman's civil rights were violated, said Harry Schenk, one of the attorneys representing the family.

After Hoffman's suicide, a report by the Medical Examiner's Office said Hoffman had made "multiple threats and attempts at suicide, most of which involved making a noose out of bedsheets to hang himself."

At one time Hoffman was placed in a cell under suicide watch. But about a month before his death, he was moved to another cell – still segregated from the regular jail population – on the advice of a doctor.

That is where Hoffman, using strips of torn bedsheets threaded through a ventilation screen, hanged himself.

Hoffman had been diagnosed before the shooting as being clinically depressed and needing medication. He also told a probation officer before he killed himself that he had opened fire at the school because he wanted to commit "suicide by cop."