Police Say Officers Didn’t Collude

Top Los Angeles police officials on Thursday defended the 40 minutes it took to separate eight officers involved in the beating of a car theft suspect and said an investigation has found no evidence that the officers colluded to get their stories straight.

The officials offered a detailed account of the department’s initial response to the televised beating after City Councilman Jack Weiss expressed concern that the 40-minute gap potentially harmed the investigation.

LAPD Assistant Chief George Gascon said Thursday that detectives investigating the case do not believe based on the evidence gathered so far that the officers conspired to develop a single story about what happened.

Until now, officials have said that Police Department policies did not require that the officers be separated because the suspect’s injuries were not serious. But on Thursday, they said that despite these rules, several police officials who saw the beating that morning believed the officers should have been immediately separated.

The beating took place shortly before 6 a.m. June 23 at end of a police pursuit that was broadcast live on two local television stations. The video showed Stanley Miller, 36, jumping out of his car and sprinting along a concrete wash in Compton before officers caught him.

Officer Phillip Watson was seen pulling out his gun and re-holstering it before tackling Miller. A second officer, David Hale, then jumped on Miller. A third officer, John Hatfield, was shown kicking at Miller before hitting him 11 times with a flashlight as Miller lay on the ground.

The sergeant on the scene would have been the first person with the authority to separate the officers. But Gascon said Thursday that the sergeant was trailing the three officers and did not see Hatfield land the blows.

“The sergeant at the scene is the first person we entrust,” Gascon said. “She did not see what happened.”

Under Police Department guidelines, a supervisor is supposed to immediately separate officers and notify top commanders if he or she witnesses a use of force that could cause serious injuries or death, a so-called categorical use of force. Those rules were enacted as part of a 2001 U.S. Justice Department consent decree developed in the wake of the Rampart scandal that mandated changes in the way the department handled civilian complaints and investigated use-of-force incidents.

About 6 a.m., an officer in a Police Department helicopter called his commander to say that the beating appeared to be a categorical use of force requiring that the officers be separated.

It wasn’t until 6:20 a.m. that several commanders -- one at the downtown command post and three at the Southeast Division -- saw the beating video when it was replayed on the news, officials said. They immediately called top police officials, who ordered that the officers be separated at once.

“There were people early on who said ‘Wow,’ ” Gascon said.

By this time, the officers had left in their patrol cars and returned to the Southeast station. It took until about 6:40 a.m. to track down the officers and assign a detective to each of them.

About the same time, Southeast Division Capt. Sergio Diaz saw a replay of the tape. He called Gascon, who was in Washington on police business.

Police Chief William J. Bratton on Wednesday called the tactics of the officers “a mess” and cited several areas in which he believes they made mistakes. But Bratton has come under tough questioning from some City Council members, including Weiss, over the beating and aftermath.

Weiss said Thursday that his questions about the 40-minute gap were designed not to criticize the Police Department but to help it do better next time.

“This is an issue the Justice Department highlighted in the consent decree,” Weiss said of separating officers. “If my questioning in this case helped the LAPD brass focus on this issue, it is a good thing.”

Gascon and others said they believe the Police Department’s response to the beating shows the effectiveness of the reforms enacted after the Rampart scandal, in which officers were accused of routinely planting evidence, framing suspects and covering up unjustified shootings.

“Think how far we’ve come since we’ve signed the consent decree,” said Gerald Chaleff, the civilian official in charge of the department’s implementation of the consent decree. “In the past, there wasn’t even a rule. Now, we are concerned about a 40-minute gap of whether or not people were separated.”

Andre Birotte, head of the Los Angeles Police Commission’s investigative wing, said it did not appear that the separation of officers was required in the Miller case under Police Department policies.

Still, he said his office would evaluate each of the officers’ statements critically.

“We want to evaluate them to make sure their stories are not too exactly the same,” said Birotte, who added that the videos would help expose any contradictions in the officers’ stories.

Sources said Hatfield told investigators that he hit Miller after another officer yelled that Miller had a gun. The officers found wire cutters in Miller’s pocket but no gun, sources said.

Gascone said the Police Department’s rules for separating officers are more stringent than other departments, where it can take days before officers are individually interviewed.