Witnesses differ with police

Three significantly different accounts of how a 31-year-old man came to die in police custody emerged Tuesday, one from the Los Angeles Police Department, the others from three people who said they saw officers beating the handcuffed man.

The death of Mauricio Cornejo, 31, has sparked tensions at the Ramona Gardens housing project, where dozens of police in riot gear converged on a crowd Tuesday evening at a makeshift carwash intended to raise funds for his funeral.

A grainy cellphone video circulating on TV news Tuesday shows what an attorney representing Cornejo’s family says is an officer striking Cornejo with a baton. But the video, provided by attorney Umberto Guizar, is so dark and short, it’s hard to make out what happened.

Cornejo was pronounced dead Saturday evening, after he was apprehended in a foot chase at the project.

Responding to questions in the community, the LAPD on Tuesday released a more detailed narrative of what detectives said happened during Cornejo’s final hours. Officials acknowledged that officers struck the man with a baton, but they said it happened only after Cornejo ignored orders to stop walking away and started fighting with them.

Police officers said Cornejo, whom they described as a gang member, was stopped for a broken taillight about 6:40 p.m. and that he was initially cooperative, then walked away from them.

One officer ran after him as another followed in a patrol car.

Police say Cornejo tossed a .45-caliber handgun, then “turned and confronted” the officer running after him, according to Lt. Paul Vernon.

Vernon said the officer ordered Cornejo to stop and, when he didn’t, pulled out an expandable baton and struck him in the arm and leg.

Vernon said Cornejo seemed “impervious” to the blows, walking away from the officer despite being ordered to stop.

The officer then delivered “additional strikes” while another officer put out a call for help, police said. Several officers then surrounded Cornejo on a footbridge near the project.

Police said that even when handcuffed, he continued to kick at them.

At the station, Vernon said, officers noticed that Cornejo was having trouble breathing. They summoned paramedics.

But at 7:30 p.m., he was pronounced dead. An autopsy was completed Tuesday but no cause of death had been determined.

Three witnesses, two at Ramona Gardens and one at Hollenbeck police station, dispute part of the police account and say officers appeared to mistreat Cornejo.

Norma Picasso said she saw officers hitting Cornejo in the head and body after he had been handcuffed in the parking lot at Ramona Gardens.

“It was just too violent,” she said in Spanish. “They hit him in the parking lot and then they took him to where there was a bridge and they all started hitting him and he was already on the ground.”

Picasso was referred to The Times by a lawyer who was at Ramona Gardens on Monday, Luis Carrillo.

A second woman referred by Carrillo, Yolanda Puente, said she watched the arrest from a barbecue party about 20 feet away.

She said she saw police kick Cornejo in the head and ribs and hit him with batons.

After he was handcuffed, police continued beating him for about a minute, she said, as he screamed for help.

Another woman said Tuesday that she had been in a holding cell at Hollenbeck Station and saw Cornejo die through the window in the cell door.

The woman, who asked that her name not be used for fear of retribution, said she saw officers drag Cornejo down the hallway. She said he was handcuffed and that she saw officers kick him at least twice.

Then, she said, he was put into an adjacent cell. Minutes later, she said, paramedics arrived and took him out of the cell.

She said paramedics attempted to revive him but could not.

The woman said she heard someone say “He’s dying.”

She said police took her to the station after officers got into a scuffle with her daughter, a pregnant 15-year-old who suffers from a mood disorder.

Police said Tuesday they could not determine whether either the mother or daughter was at the station Saturday, though one police source said a woman was in the area at the time.

The cellphone video from a Ramona Gardens resident shed little light on the incident.

Filmed through a window, it appears to show an officer delivering one blow to a man in a white T-shirt. Then it seems to show the camera panning through the house, perhaps as the photographer ran to another window to keep filming.

Ramona Gardens is a sprawl of stark, pale buildings, some decorated with colorful murals. A homemade sign was hung Tuesday on the wall of a recreation center, saying “In Loving Memory of Mauricio Cornejo.”

Tensions in the neighborhood escalated throughout the day as about 40 people gathered outside a recreation center to comfort Cornejo’s relatives and hold a bucket-and-sponge carwash to raise money for his funeral.

Many in the crowd were drinking beer and smoking marijuana as police helicopters circled overhead. Police officials said the crowd ignored several requests to disperse.

“We weren’t getting any cooperation,” said Deputy Chief Cayler Carter, standing a few feet from the crowd. Behind him stood ranks of officers, some armed with shotguns.

The police and residents videotaped and photographed each other as the standoff dragged on. Eventually, after receiving assurances that the residents would go back to their homes, Carter ordered the officers to leave.

Much of the crowd lingered into the evening, however.

A number of residents said relations between the police and the neighborhood had long been strained.

Several said they were routinely harassed by officers, including two allegedly involved in Cornejo’s arrest.

“The first thing you know, they’ve got everybody up against the wall,” said Joe Martinez, 56, who said he has lived in Ramona Gardens most of his life.

“It’s getting worse,” said a friend, Alan Ballentine, 50.

Martinez and Ballentine said that they had known Cornejo and that he kept to himself. “He was a pretty cool guy,” Martinez said.

*

jessica.garrison@latimes.com

adrian.uribarri@latimes.com

Times staff writers Richard Winton and Paul Pringle contributed to this report.