by Lee, Henry K.

The city of Oakland has agreed to pay a record $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit accusing police of giving faulty instructions to an Oakland woman and her daughter, allegedly leading to their 1991 shooting deaths by home-invasion robbers.

Bok Chan of Oakland and his son, Edwin Chan, 31, of San Leandro, will receive the settlement -- the largest police conduct payout in the city's history -- in the slayings of Bok Chan's wife, Yuet Ngor Tang Chan, 52, and daughter, Sarah Chan, 18, an honor student at Oakland High School.

The Oakland City Council agreed to the settlement in closed session Tuesday without admitting any wrongdoing on the city's part, City Attorney John Russo said yesterday.

"It's a very sad case," Russo said. "But frankly we did not want to take the risk of putting such a tragedy in front of a jury."

The plaintiffs' attorney, R.J. Waldsmith of San Francisco, said, "I think it's a fair settlement. I think this was a tragedy for the Chan family."

Waldsmith filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court in 1998, accusing Oakland police of concealing the fact that a police dispatcher had told Sarah Chan that it was safe to meet officers outside, despite the fact that the robbers were still in her home on East 28th Street.

Although Sarah Chan was fearful and asked repeatedly if it was in fact safe to go outside, the dispatcher said it was, the suit said.

As she went downstairs, Sarah Chan surprised one of the robbers, who shot her in the head with a .38-caliber pistol before shooting Yuet Chan -- already bound and gagged -- because she was a witness, police said.

Both women were pronounced dead at the scene. Sarah Chan was found on the living room floor, a cordless phone still in her hand and in the "on" position. The robbers surrendered after being cornered by police.

Police told reporters after the slayings that the robbers "panicked" and shot the women. The Chan family did not realize the contents of the 911 call until seven years later, when the four suspects in the case went to trial.

"It was a coverup, and that was a concern to me," Waldsmith said yesterday.

On Sept. 10, 1991, Quyen Dai Van, Steven Hua, Xieng Khou and Wing Cheng hatched a plan to rob Bok Chan. Cheng owed Bok Chan $1,700 and directed the three other men to rob the Chan home, which they believed had as much as $100,000 inside, and split the take with him, authorities said.

The men used a ruse to lure Bok Chan out of his home on East 28th Street and told Yuet Chan when she opened the door that they wanted to repay money that they owed her husband, records show.

But instead, Van, Hua and Khou rushed into the home and accosted Yuet Chan, tying her ankles and wrists with electrical cord and wrapping her face with masking tape, records show.

The assailants were unaware that Sarah Chan had heard her mother's screams and was hiding in an upstairs bedroom. According to the suit, a 911 dispatcher told her that "the police were there and that it was all right for her to leave her room and go out to meet them."

The four men, who worked at the Oaks Club in Emeryville, were convicted of two counts of murder with special circumstances.

Court records provide conflicting reports of what led the dispatcher to tell Sarah Chan to leave the home.

One account, from an appeals court ruling affirming the sentencing of one of the robbers, said Officer T.W. Johnson, the first officer on scene, believed that the suspects had left because all was quiet and therefore told the dispatcher to ask Sarah Chan to come out if she felt it was safe.

A separate appeals court ruling said the dispatcher asked Johnson if he wanted Sarah Chan to come outside. Johnson "mistakenly interpreted the dispatcher's message to mean that the caller thought the premises were 'safe,' " the ruling said.

Oakland Assistant City Attorney Randolph Hall said that both rulings were inaccurate in their statement of the circumstances. Johnson believed that the criminals were no longer in the house and simply asked the dispatcher to have Sarah Chan come outside, Hall said.

In his own police reports, Johnson -- who left the department in 1995 -- made no mention of his conversations with the dispatcher, records show.

Johnson, taking up a position outside the home, wrote, "I heard OPD dispatch advise (responding officers) that the caller was coming down to open the door for myself and the other officers."

Soon after, Johnson said, he heard footsteps descending the stairs. He then reported hearing a second set of footsteps, then sounds of a struggle.

"I could feel bodies bouncing off the walls," he wrote. "Suddenly, I heard a high-pitched, ear-ringing and piercing scream" before gunshots rang out, according to Johnson.

Van, 34, the gunman; Khou, 31; and Cheng, 53; are serving life in prison without parole. Hua, 30, is serving 50 years to life.