LAPD officer who died after being dropped on his head during a self-defense training exercise was targeted for investigating a gang rape by fellow officers, family lawyer alleges

• The family of deceased Los Angeles Police Department Officer Houston Tipping is suing the city for wrongful death.
• Tipping died from a spinal injury caused during self-defense training, according to a coroner's report.

The family lawyer of a Los Angeles Police Department officer who was killed during training is suing the city after he says that the officer was targeted for investigating a gang rape by his fellow officers.

"They used that training as a cover to kill him in retaliation for his whistleblowing activity," attorney Bradley Gage told NPR.

Gage alleged that LAPD officer Houston Tipping, 32, was assaulted during a self-defense training after submitting reports of a female victim who claimed that she was raped by four LAPD officers, according to NPR.

He also said one of the officers who were part of the training that killed Tipping was included in the report, according to NPR.

Tipping died three days after he suffered a spinal injury during the self-defense training on May 26, according to the report.

Lizabeth Rhodes, LAPD Director of the Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy, said during a meeting on Tuesday that Tipping was role-playing as an uncooperative "suspect" and charged an unnamed student officer as part of the training.

The officer dropped Tipping on his head, which according to the coroner's report, caused a spinal injury, resulting in him going into cardiac arrest and dying three days later, according to Rhodes.

LAPD officials stated in their report that there was no video or audio recording of the training and that many of Tipping's injuries to his ribs resulted from attempts to revive him at the academy with a CPR machine, a LUCAS device.

Gage told CBS Los Angeles that the training academy's automatic CPR machine was never used in the room at the time of the incident.

"The problem with that is other medical reports show the LUCAS device was never used," Gage told CBS Los Angeles.

LAPD Chief Michel Moore said that Gage's allegations are baseless, according to KTLA 5.

"He's made other baseless allegations in this unfortunate tragedy," Moore told KTLA 5.

Rhodes said on Tuesday's meeting that the training scenario was not a "mob attack, as has been alleged," but an exercise between two people.

"The coroner's office determined that this was an accident, as did the department," Rhodes said. "It was a tragic accident and again we express our condolences."

Bradley Gage and the LAPD did not immediately respond when reached for a comment