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

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.

“Nothing was planted in that car,” he said. “It would mean that it was happenstance that they placed the right gun with the right body.”

Vincent said the explanation for why the robbers pointed unloaded pellet guns at the police will never be known. “They might have thought it was someone else and raised the guns to scare them,” he said.

note: The federal jury hearing the SIS case found for the plaintiffs, awarding the families of the killed robbers and the lone survivor a total of $44,042in damages.

Attorney offers to drop members as defendants if they make Gates pay damages assessed in same incident. Officials angrily charge extortion.

April 2, 1992

Los Angeles city council members were sued Wednesday over a police shooting that left three robbers dead, but the attorney who filed the case offered to drop them as defendants if they make Police Chief Daryl F. Gates personally pay for damages assessed against him this week for the same shooting.

Council members familiar with the new suit and a city attorney who defends the city in police-related cases reacted angrily to the offer from civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman, which was contained in a letter to the council that accompanied the new $20-million suit.

“Sounds like extortion, doesn’t it?” said Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent, head of the city’s police litigation unit.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who favors making Gates pay the damages from his own pocket, said he was nonetheless disturbed by Yagman’s letter.

“Nobody likes to be threatened,” he said.

Councilwoman Joy Picus, who is undecided on the issue of whether Gates should pay, said Yagman was using tactics of intimidation and harassment.

“The nerve of him,” she said. “I’ve dealt with attorneys who have tried to extort and threaten me before. I’ll be damned if I’ll be intimidated by him.”

Yagman denied his offer to the council was improper or threatening.

“Everybody has a right to ask people in the government to do or not do something, and to say if you do it the way we want we will take action or refrain from taking action,” Yagman said. “That’s not extortion. That is trying to settle the lawsuit.”

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court against the council and numerous police officers and officials is the latest twist in the case that has followed the Feb. 12, 1990, shooting outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland.

The shooting initially spawned a lawsuit on behalf of four family members of three robbers killed by members of the police Special Investigations Section and a fourth robber who was shot but survived.

The plaintiffs, represented by Yagman, contended that the police used excessive force and fired on the robbers without provocation. Gates was named as defendant because the suit said he was ultimately responsible for the officers’ actions and condoned the use of excessive force.

After a three-month trial, a federal jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiffs Monday and awarded punitive damages of $44,042 against Gates and nine members of the SIS. Jurors said the damage award was purposely set low because they believed the chief and his officers should pay it out of their own pockets. Gates was to pay $20,505of the award.

The verdict touched off a debate this week among council members over whether the city should pay the damages anyway. The council has routinely picked up the tab for punitive damages assessed against police officers for incidents that occurred while they were on the job.

On Wednesday, the new lawsuit further added to the controversy. The new suit is identical to the first one but was filed on behalf of two-year-old Johanna Trevino, daughter of Juan Bahena, one of the robbers police killed.

Yagman said Trevino was born six days after Bahena, whose real name was Javier Trevino, was killed and can file the lawsuit under a federal precedent set last year in another case involving the SIS. In that case, in which Yagman is also the plaintiff ’s attorney, a federal appeals court held that a child who was not yet born when a parent was killed by police may still sue for damages over losing a parent.

The new lawsuit names 20SIS officers, Gates, Mayor Tom Bradley, 17 former police chiefs and commission members and all city council members in office at the time of the shooting.

In a letter enclosed with the suit to the council, Yagman said:

“If the council votes not to indemnify Gates for the punitive damages in this case, then all of you who make up the majority so voting will be dismissed voluntarily as defendants in this new case.”

Vincent, the city attorney, said he could not comment on the lawsuit until he received it. But of Yagman’s letter to the council, he said, “I have never heard of an attorney doing anything like that at all.”

Council members who received it Wednesday also reacted strongly.

Councilwoman Joan Mike Flores said the lawsuit and Yagman’s tactics were an outrage.

“I will not be intimidated by these types of tactics,” she said in a statement.

Yaroslavsky said the letter Yagman sent could hinder efforts by council members who believe Gates should pay the damages awarded by the jury.

“I don’t think Yagman’s letter advances that cause at all,” he said. “I think it’s unnecessary and inappropriate. My inclination is not to pay for Chief Gates… I will come to a final conclusion based on the facts, not a threat.”

But Yagman said his letter was an effort to make the council abide by the wishes of the jury that heard the McDonald’s shooting case.

“We are just saying that if they refuse to indemnify Gates, we will drop the case,” Yagman said. “It might be wrong to threaten to sue them. But we haven’t done that.

We have sued them and said, ‘If you act in a responsible way we will consider dismissing you from this lawsuit.’”

ATTORNEYS AWARDED FEE OF $378,000 IN BRUTALITY SUIT

Courts: The ruling could lead to more sparks between lawyer and the city council.

August 5, 1992

A federal judge has awarded $378,000 in legal fees to civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman and his partners for their work on a successful excessive-force lawsuit against former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates and nine police officers.

The ruling released Tuesday sets up another potential conflict in a running legal battle between Yagman and the city council over the council’s financial support for officers defending themselves from civil suits alleging brutality.

Yagman outraged city officials earlier this year when he submitted a bill that asked for nearly $1million in fees for himself and two partners who handled the lawsuit over a 1990 police shooting that left three robbers dead and one wounded outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland.