Yeager told the jurors to focus on the physical evidence that shows Easton police officers panicked at the sound of other officers' gunfire, shooting and wounding Hogan as he laid down his rifle to surrender after a 90-minute standoff in his South Side row home five years ago.

The attorneys for the city, David J. MacMain and Joseph J. Santarone Jr., told jurors the police reacted the way any officer would have when confronted with a deadly threat.

Santarone , in a separate closing argument to defend retired Capt. John Mazzeo, followed up by questioning why Hogan or his family, which includes lawyers and a county judge, never demanded an investigation into whether Hogan was shot while surrendering.

Santarone said Hogan's surrender story didn't surface until after he and his wife, Ann, filed the lawsuit in 2002. He said Hogan's claim that he suffers from post traumatic stress disorder as a result of the shooting also didn't surface in medical reports until after the lawsuit was filed.

The lawsuit's basic allegation is that six officers used excessive force. The five officers who fired on him are defendants, as is Mazzeo, who is accused of stomping on Hogan's forearm and failing to properly supervise the officers on the scene to prevent their use of excessive force.

If the jury unanimously agrees excessive force was not a factor, it will not have to consider the other allegations in the lawsuit pertaining to the department's history of police brutality.

The Hogans also are suing the city and its officials, including Police Chief Larry Palmer and former Mayor Thomas F. Goldsmith, for allegedly creating a culture tolerant of civil rights violations by ignoring previous excessive-force complaints and lawsuits filed over the last 20-plus years.

In the last six years, the city and its insurance company have paid out in excess of $5 million either because of jury verdicts or out-of-court settlements.

Each of the officers testified he had never fired at another human in the line of duty until Feb. 25, 2002 -- the date Hogan's wife called police because he was drunk and had armed himself with two handguns.

By the time police arrived, a neighbor testified, Hogan had disarmed and calmed down. But Hogan barricaded himself in his basement with a rifle and shotgun as police approached.

Yeager reminded the jury of expert testimony about how police failed to follow basic police procedures in their response, agitating Hogan with excessive noise, failing to rely on a single negotiator and not telling everyone Lt. Scott Casterline had orders to shoot a nonlethal rubber pellet at Hogan regardless of whether he was armed.

Casterline's discharge was followed by an eruption of about 15 other shots from four other officers, John Remaley, Dominick Marraccini, David Beitler and Michael Orchulli. Each of the officers, who were positioned on each side of Hogan, said Hogan pointed the gun in his direction, which Yeager said would have impossible in that 11/2-second time frame.

Hogan pleaded guilty to terroristic threats and reckless endangerment, spending one year in Northampton County Prison. He and his wife continue to live in the W. Grant Street row home in which he was shot.

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