Two police shootings rock city

The day after back-to-back shootings by Los Angeles police officers on the same Wilmington block, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William J. Bratton on Friday addressed the high number of deadly confrontations officers have been engaged in this year.

“It is regrettable that there is so much violence in this city,” Bratton said at a news conference, where he welcomed back an officer who had been wounded in one of the year’s shootouts. “But, also, on the other hand, we need to be thankful that we have men and women in this department who go toward that danger.”

Los Angeles Police Department officers have fired their weapons in 13 incidents this year -- hitting their target in all but one encounter. Four times, suspects also opened fire on police.

The number of officer- involved shootings is two fewer than during the same period in 2007, but the toll has been more dramatic.

Eleven people have been killed this year, compared with five at this time last year. And, last month, the department was left badly shaken when Randal Simmons, a veteran officer from the department’s elite SWAT unit, was killed during a shootout with a mentally ill man, who had killed three family members and barricaded himself in his home.

James Veenstra, another SWAT officer who was shot in the face while storming the man’s house alongside Simmons, was praised by Bratton and Villaraigosa, who called the officer “a profile in courage.”

His jaw wired shut after reconstructive surgery, Veenstra thanked the doctors and medical staff who have treated him and the hundreds of well-wishers who have flooded his home with cards, flowers, donations and phone calls. He declined to discuss the deadly showdown, saying only, “I never lost consciousness; I remember everything.”

The latest spasm of violence unfolded late Thursday in Wilmington, where police were drawn into two unrelated shootouts within yards of each other.

About 9 p.m., two officers stopped Marcos Ernesto Macias, 36, near L Street and Watson Avenue for riding a bike at night with no lights, said Deputy Chief Kenneth Garner. The officers grabbed Macias when he shoved his hands into his pockets and then shot him after Macias fired several shots from a gun inside his clothing, Garner said.

Macias, whom police later learned had been released from prison on parole two days earlier after serving time for murder, died later that night in a hospital.

Less than three hours later, a man walked out of his apartment building and opened fire on two officers who were guarding the cordoned-off perimeter of the first crime scene, Garner said.

They shot back, hitting 46-year-old Frank Vasquez several times. When Vasquez, laying on the ground, ignored police orders and reached for his gun again three more officers opened fire, striking him repeatedly, according to Garner. Vasquez remains in stable condition at a hospital, said Garner, who declined to identify any of the officers involved.

Incidents in which an officer makes the often split-second decision to shoot are highly-charged, highly-scrutinized affairs, especially when the suspect is later found to be unarmed.

The officers are quickly separated from one another and monitored by supervisors to prevent them from colluding on what occurred. Witnesses often disagree with one another and the involved officers about what happened. In communities where distrust of law enforcement runs high, the police are often assumed by many to have acted rashly.

Left to sort it all out is the department’s Force Investigation Division. Usually within an hour of an officer-involved shooting, investigators from the division are at the scene to open two separate investigations. One team gathers information for an internal LAPD deliberation over whether the shooting was within department policies. A second team looks for evidence, which is handed over to the district attorney, who must decide whether to pursue criminal charges against the officer -- a rare outcome.

The investigation reports typically run 800 to 1,000 pages and take about eight months to complete, said Capt. Kris Pitcher, head of the Force Investigation Division.

Thursday’s shootings left Pitcher’s investigators working through the night, and Bratton said he would look at whether the division has enough manpower.

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joel.rubin@latimes.com