In the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, the plaintiffs — Thomas Barksdale, Rafael Valle, Paula Valle, Giomarie Cardona, Dana Stewart, Nasha Harrobin and Charlotte Wallace, representing the estate of Deanita Smith — claim they were terrorized, assaulted, battered and falsely imprisoned by former officer John Biehn.

They seek unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, Tina Sypek D'Amato, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

City spokeswoman Caryn Kaufman also would not comment.

Biehn's lawyer, John R. Gulash, said he has not reviewed the suit. "As was apparent in the recently completed criminal trial, there exists a significant disagreement of what occurred," he said.

Biehn, apparently drunk and enraged about a dispute with his wife's ex-husband, was accused of going to the Marina Village housing complex in the early hours of Aug. 23, 2004, with a loaded gun, intending to take out his anger on minority residents there.

The decorated police officer and Army veteran began at the home of Paula Valle, whose son Biehn had previously arrested.

On May 18, a Superior Court jury found Biehn, 31, not guilty of three counts of attempted murder, three counts of attempted first-degree assault, two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment and two counts of second-degree reckless endangerment.

The jury found him guilty of one count of first-degree reckless endangerment — for leaving a gun where children could find it. He was sentenced to a suspended one-year prison sentence with three years probation.

Three residents, including Stewart and Deanita Smith, testified that Biehn pointed the gun at their heads and tried to shoot them. Smith, who died after the trial of natural causes, said Biehn fired at her car as she sped away. Another witness, Thomas Barksdale, claimed Biehn fired at him as he ran down the street.

The lawsuit states that in the days following Biehn's rampage, the Police Department failed to "memorialize" Biehn's statement of what occurred, lost evidence, and failed to perform gunshot residue testing and "never allowed for a positive identification to be made of Biehn despite numerous outraged and terrified witnesses, including the plaintiffs in this action." It also points out that police charged Biehn with misdemeanors and that it was the State's Attorney's Office that raised the charges against him to attempted murder.

The suit also points out that Biehn was later honored by the city and police department with medals after his arrest. The medals were for his actions before the Marina Village incident.

"All plaintiffs suffered deprivation of their federal civil rights and severe and in some instances permanent emotional pain and suffering, including but not limited to fear, nightmares, sleeplessness, humiliation and trauma, all as a result of the defendant's conduct," the suit states.

Daniel Tepfer, who covers state courts and law enforcement issues, can be reached at 330-6308.