Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers

by Michael Connelly

  “I might have been wrong but I always thought they were my bosses,” Davis said. “They were tough bosses. . . . I danced to their tune. I wanted to keep my job for a while.”

  NOTE: FBI Agent Richard Boeh refused to testify about his investigation of the SIS and was held in contempt of court. The agent immediately appealed and the contempt order was reversed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The trial then resumed after a month’s delay without his testimony.

  CHRISTOPHER REPORT: IT CUTS BOTH WAYS

  Courts: The findings of the city-commissioned panel could work against L.A. when jurors rule in police brutality suits.

  February 4, 1992

  As Mayor Tom Bradley sat in the witness chair, a thin smile played on his face. He was facing an uneasy situation that he and the city may have to get used to.

  Bradley was testifying in federal court last month as a defendant in a civil rights trial. And he was repeatedly saying, yes, he fully agreed with the conclusions of the Christopher Commission, the independent, blue-ribbon panel that last year investigated the Los Angeles Police Department and found problems with management, excessive force and racism.

  “You have no reservations about your agreement with those conclusions?” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Stephen Yagman, asked.

  “No,” Bradley told the 10 jurors.

  Bradley was testifying in a civil rights case in which police officers are accused of killing three robbery suspects without provocation. Police managers and Bradley are also accused in the suit of tolerating excessive force and many of the departmental problems cited by the commission.

  In effect, the mayor was being cut with his own sword; after all, he was a main force behind creation of the commission. Now, the commission’s findings could prove pivotal when jurors decide if the officers acted improperly and their supervisors—right up to Bradley and Chief Daryl F. Gates—are responsible.

  While the trial is the first in which the report has been brought up by plaintiffs against police and city officials, it most likely will not be the last.

  Yagman, a civil rights attorney who specializes in police-related lawsuits, said he has clients with five more cases set for trial this year. He plans in each case to introduce the commission report as evidence of a police department that he says is out of control. Other civil rights attorneys said last week that they plan to do the same.

  “It is paradoxical and sweet,” Yagman said of having such a key document essentially prepared for him by the city that his clients are suing. “The effect of having this report is like putting whipped cream on a malt.”

  Meantime, Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent, in charge of defending the city against police-related lawsuits, said his staff is developing strategies to deal with the report when it comes up in trials. He conceded that his task may only be beginning.

  “It is a valuable tool for all civil rights attorneys,” Vincent said. “I am sure we will be facing this for several years to come.”

  Though the report has been discussed at length in front of the jury in the trial, Vincent hopes to block inclusion of the 228-page volume as evidence in the case. Though pointing out that the report makes many favorable conclusions about the police department, Vincent said its damaging claims are largely hearsay and opinion—not evidence.

  The current case arose from a shooting on Feb. 12, 1990, in which nine members of the police Special Investigations Section opened fire on four suspects who had just left a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland after a holdup. All four men were hit by police shots and only one survived.

  The families of the dead men and the survivor, who was later imprisoned for robbery, filed suit against the officers, Bradley, Gates and the Police Commission alleging that the robbers’ civil rights were violated because the police opened fire without provocation. The lawsuit also alleges that the SIS is a “death squad” that has been created and fostered by an environment of lax management, brutality and racism in the department.

  More than a year later, the Christopher Commission, formed by Bradley after the outcry that accompanied the Rodney G. King beating, delivered a report highly critical of management of the department and concluded that the police force had problems with excessive force, racism and a “code of silence” among its officers.

  Yagman said in a recent interview that many of the report’s conclusions mirror the allegations in the lawsuit spawned by the McDonald’s shooting.

  He unsuccessfully sought to have Warren Christopher, who chaired the commission, testify as a witness. However, U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts has allowed Yagman to use the commission’s report to question witnesses such as Bradley, Gates and police commissioners.

  Letts is expected to rule later whether the report will be accepted as evidence and whether jurors will be able to refer to it during deliberations.

  Regardless of the ruling, the report and its conclusions are already a large part of the trial record. So much so that at one point during Bradley’s testimony, Letts interrupted and cautioned the jury that they were not deciding a case on the incident that prompted the report.

  “Don’t get confused,” Letts said. “Rodney King is not here.”

  Outside of court, Yagman has told reporters that his questioning of witnesses has covered “every single chapter” of the report.

  But how important the Christopher Commission report will be to the case and others that follow cannot be determined until verdicts are returned.

  Jurors in the McDonald’s case have heard conflicting testimony over the report. Bradley said he agreed with the report’s conclusions, while Gates testified that he believes many of them are untrue or exaggerated.

  And even in testifying that he accepted the report, Bradley sought to repair any damage to the defense by stressing that the report targets only a small portion of the force. He said that, overall, the city has the finest big-city police department in the country.

  But Yagman and other attorneys said the commission report will automatically lend a strong degree of validation to claims made in lawsuits of police abuse.

  “This is not a wild-eyed civil rights lawyer saying this, it is a blue-ribbon panel appointed to fairly evaluate the LAPD,” attorney Benjamin Schonbrun said. He plans to introduce the report as evidence in two upcoming trials against the Los Angeles police.

  “I’ve been saying these same things for years,” Yagman said of the report’s conclusions. “Everybody now believes it.”

  Other attorneys specializing in police misconduct litigation said the effect that the report will have on how they prepare lawsuits against the Los Angeles police will be significant, and possibly expensive as damages are assessed.

  “By all means, it is terribly important,” said Hugh R. Manes, a civil rights lawyer in Los Angeles for more than 35 years. “I think it is a very important tool against the LAPD. It is based upon their own files and records going back 10 years and thus shows a pattern of misconduct.”

  Manes said the report’s broad coverage of the department’s problems will mean that at least portions of the report will be relevant, and admissible, in almost all LAPD-related cases.

  Veteran police litigator Donald Cook has a federal suit pending against Gates and the city that also alleges misconduct by the SIS.

  “And guess what I am going to use as evidence?” he asked recently.

  He said that, like Yagman, he will attempt to introduce the commission’s report as evidence of the department’s poor management and condoning of excessive force.

  “It is a great piece of evidence—really trustworthy, credible evidence of what we have been saying for years,” Cook said of the report. “It is ironic that we are validated by the city. It is really ironic.

  “I think the city is getting a dose of justice.”

  Vincent, the deputy city attorney, has yet to mount the city’s defense in the current case. Though he declined to reveal specifics about his strategy, he said his task is to clearly separate the report from the
facts of the shooting that is the basis for the lawsuit.

  “We are going to stick to the facts of the case,” Vincent said. “Our opinion is like the mayor’s. It is still the finest police department in the nation.”

  He said that almost all documents used as evidence in lawsuits against the police come from police-shooting reports, policy statements and disciplinary records. So facing the commission report is not a totally unfamiliar situation. Still, Vincent said, its impact may be the most difficult to deal with.

  “I think it is significant,” he said. “It has certainly gotten recognition and prestige.

  “But I think it is something we will effectively deal with. We think some of it is flawed. It gives a skewed view.”

  That view comes from the report’s focus on problems within the department without a full reporting on positive aspects of the force, Vincent said. The report’s conclusions are too broadly drawn, he added, and jurors will be unable to ascribe them to the officers involved in the McDonald’s shooting because neither they nor their unit is mentioned in the report.

  “This type of information should never be used,” Vincent said. “It has come into this case to prejudice officers that are not even named in it.”

  Still, Vincent is resigned to having that task of deflecting the effect of the report in trials to come.

  “I am not sure of all the ways it can be used against us,” he said. “So we are thinking about it.

  “We are just going to take it one case at a time.”

  L.A. DETECTIVE TELLS DETAILS OF FATAL SHOOTING

  Civil rights: The officer is testifying as a defendant in a suit alleging the Special Investigations Section killed three unarmed robbers.

  March 5, 1992

  In testimony lasting nearly three hours in federal court Wednesday, a Los Angeles police officer described in grim detail the shooting in which he and fellow officers fired 35 times at four robbers outside a Sunland McDonald’s, killing three and wounding the fourth.

  Detective John Helms said he fired six times with a shotgun and three times with a pistol after seeing one of the bandits flee the getaway car with a gun and a second man brandishing a gun inside the car.

  Afterward, police discovered that the weapons used by the robbers during the Feb. 12, 1990, incident were pellet guns that were replicas of real firearms.

  During the shooting, Helms said: “I was looking for any indication that these men were trying to submit to arrest. I saw nothing” that indicated surrender.

  Helms’ testimony came in the months-long trial of a civil rights lawsuit filed by the surviving robber and the families of the men killed.

  Their suit contends that the nine officers who opened fire did so without warning or provocation and that the use of excessive force violated their rights. The suit says the officers, all members of the department’s Special Investigations Section, are part of a “death squad” that specifically targets criminal suspects for execution.

  The surviving robber, Alfredo Olivas, testified earlier that the bandits had stowed their pellet guns in the trunk of the car after the robbery and therefore were unarmed when fired upon. Several officers later testified briefly that they saw guns being brandished, prompting the shooting.

  Now, in the defense phase of the trial, the officers are testifying at length about the incident and why they opened fire.

  Seemingly choked with emotion during some of his testimony about the shooting, Helms told jurors that, because of tactical and safety concerns, the officers could not move in to arrest the bandits until the thieves left the McDonald’s after robbing the lone employee inside.

  When the four men were in their car, which was parked on the street, four SIS cars moved in to block their escape. Two of the police cars actually hit the getaway car, “jamming” it behind a parked truck.

  As officers jumped out of their cars, Helms said, he heard one officer shout “Gun!”—a warning that he saw a gun in the getaway car. Helms then heard shots being fired and shouts of “Police! You’re under arrest!”

  “Things were going on simultaneously,” Helms said. “I saw a man get out . . . and I saw a gun in his right hand. I saw him start to run.”

  Helms said that, because the robbers had used guns during previous crimes, he believed the men still inside the car were also armed and that the officers surrounding the car were in danger.

  “I started directing fire at the back,” Helms said. “The next thing I saw was one of the handguns being brandished through one of the holes in the rear window.”

  Helms fired again, emptying his shotgun of shells. In the meantime, other officers shot the man who had run from the car when he allegedly turned and pointed a pellet gun at them.

  “I knew I was out of ammo on my shotgun,” Helms said. “I put it in my car and took out my .45.”

  Helms then described how he and his partner approached the car to make sure the three robbers inside were no longer a threat. He said that when he looked into the car one of the men in the backseat was reaching for a gun on the floor. Helms said he yelled for the man to stop and fired twice when he did not comply. Helms said the other man in the backseat then reached for the weapon, and Helms fired at him as well.

  Helms said he did not know how long the shooting lasted. “When I believe my life is in danger, I am not a good estimator of time,” he said.

  During cross-examination of Helms, the plaintiffs’ attorney, Stephen Yagman, pointed out that the weapon the officer claimed to have seen in the car was an unloaded pellet gun. Yagman has said that the jury will have to decide whether it is plausible that the robbers would have pointed or attempted to reach for pellet guns when confronted by nine officers with shotguns and .45s.

  GATES WANTS TO BE ‘JUDGE, JURY, EXECUTIONER,’ LAWYER SAYS

  Courts: Attorneys make their closing arguments in the trial stemming from a February 1990 shooting in Sunland in which officers killed three robbers.

  March 25, 1992

  The Los Angeles Police Department is a “Frankenstein monster” created by Chief Daryl F. Gates, who has allowed a squad of officers to operate as “assassins,” a federal jury was told Tuesday in a trial over a police shooting that left three robbers dead.

  But the allegations made by an attorney representing the robbers and their families was rebutted by the city’s attorney, who defended Gates and said members of the police squad—the Special Investigations Section—use tactics designed to avoid shootings.

  The statements came during closing arguments in a three-month trial stemming from the Feb. 12, 1990, shooting outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland.

  “The police have gone too far in Los Angeles by using excessive force,” plaintiffs’ attorney Stephen Yagman said.

  “The LAPD and Daryl Gates have ruled this community for 14 years by fear,” Yagman said. “He does and has done as he pleases. The LAPD is his Frankenstein monster. It is something that has gone beyond all bounds. . . . He wants to be judge, jury and executioner.”

  Gates and nine SIS officers are defendants in the lawsuit filed by the families of three bandits who were killed by police and a fourth who was shot but survived. The lawsuit contends that the officers used excessive force and fired on the robbers without cause. The 10-member jury is expected to begin deliberations today.

  Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent countered Yagman’s claims by telling jurors that evidence presented in the case clearly shows the nine officers opened fire when they sensed they were in imminent danger. He defended the firepower—35 shots from shotguns and handguns—as being an appropriate response when the officers saw the robbers brandishing weapons. The weapons were later discovered to be pellet guns resembling real handguns.

  Vincent cautioned jurors not to confuse the superior firepower of police with excessive force, noting that each officer feared for his life and had reason to fire. “This is not the Old West where you get out on the street and have a shootout at noon,” Vincent said. “They are not the sit
ting ducks of the public.”

  According to trial testimony, the officers opened fire on the bandits after they watched them break into the closed McDonald’s, rob the lone employee inside and then return to their getaway car. The shooting started almost immediately when officers converged on the car.

  The plaintiffs contend that the bandits had put their unloaded pellet guns in the trunk of the car and therefore were unarmed when the shooting started.

  Noting that U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts ruled earlier that the police had probable cause to arrest the four suspects before the robbery, Yagman argued that the officers allowed the crime to take place and orchestrated the stakeout in such a way that the shooting was “inevitable, inescapable.” He said the special police unit has a long record of using tactics that often end in shootings.

  Yagman said police took the pellet guns from the trunk after the shooting and “planted” one inside the car and one on the body of a robber who had run from the car before being shot by police. He said police photos show the gun inside the car in different positions, indicating police tampered with the evidence.

  He said that while the claim that guns were planted might be “hard to digest,” the alternative—the police story—defies common sense.

  “What person, when faced with nine officers with shotguns, would point an unloaded, inoperable pellet gun at them?” he asked. “What does common sense tell you?”

  In his closing argument, Vincent denied that Gates condones excessive force. He also said an extensive department investigation cleared the officers of any wrongdoing.

  He recounted police testimony that the gun was indeed moved. Vincent said the gun was photographed as it was found by officers and then removed from the car but later replaced so additional photos could be taken. But the original photographs are clearly marked, he said.

  Vincent noted that the weapon allegedly planted on the body of Herbert Burgos was the same weapon the survivor, Alfredo Olivas, testified that Burgos used during the robbery. Vincent asked jurors how the officers could have known on which robber to plant which weapon.