Michael Connelly - Crime Beat - A Decade Of Covering Cops And Killers

Officers later explained that they could not make arrests before the robbery because the four men moved too quickly and were too spread out around the restaurant.

Whether the men in the car were armed at the time of the shooting will be at issue in the trial. Yagman said they had no weapons and were shot in the back.

Olivas, the first witness to testify, said that the robbers stored their weapons in the trunk of the car before getting in. The shooting started a few seconds later, said Olivas, who is serving a 17-year prison term for the robberies.

Vincent in his opening statement sharply disagreed, saying two of the robbers drew the police fire when they pointed their weapons at the officers. “Officers have a right to self-defense,” he said. “They don’t have to wait for someone to shoot them.”

Police: Existence of inquiry came to light in suit over SIS unit’s killings of three men who had robbed a Valley restaurant.

January 16, 1992

The FBI is investigating the killing of three robbers in Sunland by a controversial Los Angeles police squad, and the Justice Department apparently has taken the case before a federal grand jury, court documents showed Wednesday.

The investigation surfaced when the U.S. Attorney’s Office mentioned it in asking a U.S. district judge to throw out a subpoena for an FBI agent called to testify in the trial of a lawsuit filed over the shooting.

The request indicated that the shooting by the Special Investigations Section had been under investigation for nearly a year.

The FBI agent, Richard Boeh, was subpoenaed to testify in the civil rights suit filed after the Feb. 12, 1990, incident, when nine SIS officers fired at a getaway car used by four robbers who had just held up a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland. They killed three and wounded the fourth.

The survivor and relatives of the slain men are suing the city and the police department, alleging that the SIS squad violated the robbers’ civil rights by executing them without cause.

Police have contended in testimony in the week-old trial of the lawsuit that the robbers were shot because they pointed pistols at the officers. Weapons found at the scene were discovered to be pellet pistols, similar in appearance to firearms.

Stephen Yagman, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, summoned Boeh as a witness, saying the federal agent has information that could be vital to proving the suit’s key contention – that the robbers had placed their pellet guns in the trunk of the getaway car before getting into it, and therefore were unarmed when the SIS officers surprised them and opened fire.

Yagman said the FBI investigation dates from early last year, when Boeh interviewed the sole surviving robber, Alfredo Olivas, now 21and serving a 17-year prison term for robbery.

“It would be a perversion of justice for the jury to deliberate this case without hearing what the FBI has found,” Yagman said outside of court.

But the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a motion to quash the subpoena for Boeh. In a declaration contained in the motion, Boeh said he has been investigating the police shooting since April 1991 and indicated that he has provided testimony to a grand jury investigating the incident.

“If called to testify, my testimony would violate the rule of secrecy relating to proceedings before the grand jury,” Boeh said.

Boeh said that if he testified he would also have to reveal the identity of informants and other details of the federal investigation.

“To my knowledge, the information from the informants and the identity of the informants is known only to the government,” Boeh said. “My testimony would reveal facts relating to the strategy of the government in the investigation.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Sean Berry, who is seeking to block Boeh’s testimony, did not return a phone call seeking comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office routinely withholds comment on grand jury proceedings, which are secret.

Los Angeles Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent, who is representing the police officers and other defendants in the civil rights suit, including Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and Mayor Tom Bradley, could not be reached for comment after the trial recessed Wednesday.

Judge J. Spencer Letts has not yet ruled on whether Yagman will be able to call Boeh to testify.

In trial testimony Wednesday, a parade of former top managers of the police department testified briefly about their roles in running the department – some going back to the early 1960s.

Yagman called 13 former members of the civilian Police Commission and three former police chiefs in an attempt to bolster the lawsuit’s contention that the SIS, a secretive unit that places criminal suspects under surveillance, is a “death squad” that has operated for 25 years because commissioners and chiefs have exercised little control over the department.

According to testimony, the unit has been involved in 45 shootings since 1965, killing 28 people and wounding 27.

Most of the former commissioners testified that they considered the appointed post a part-time job, and four testified they never knew of the SIS while they were members of the commission. Former Chief Tom Red-din, who held the top job from 1967 to 1969, said in brief testimony that he had known of the unit’s existence but had never investigated its activities.

Roger Murdock, who served as interim chief for six months in 1969, said he thought the SIS unit was formed to investigate the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

Yagman did not ask Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita), who was police chief from 1969 to 1978, about the SIS. Instead, he asked how Davis viewed the role of the Police Commission during his time as chief.

“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.

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 10jurors.

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.