As Tensions Rise, Chief Defends SWAT Team

An angry Police Chief William J. Bratton lashed out Tuesday against slain shootout suspect Jose Raul Pena, calling him a “coldblooded killer” who was squarely responsible for his own death and that of his 19-month-old daughter.

Bratton, while acknowledging the likelihood that police bullets cut down Pena and the toddler, defended his officers against charges from the child’s family and community activists that police haste cost Susie Lopez her life.

Bratton said Pena engaged in an hours-long standoff with police in Watts on Sunday, threatened his entire family and took shots at his 17-year-old stepdaughter.

“This is not a good father. He is no hero.... All of this tragedy falls on Mr. Pena,” Bratton said after a news conference.

Bratton’s biting comments came on a day of escalating tensions between law enforcement officials and the toddler’s family. The death of the girl, captured bright-eyed and chubby-cheeked in photos released by her family, became the focus on national attention as police conceded it was likely that she had been killed by bullets fired by the SWAT officers trying to save her.

Bratton’s remarks drew criticism from Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a commentator and community activist who attended a news conference critical of the police earlier in the day at the shootout scene. Hutchinson said that while he thought Pena did not deserve sympathy, his actions did not absolve police of responsibility.

“The real question that dangles in the air is if the autopsy shows that the kid was killed by police bullets,” Hutchinson said. “I’m not sure Chief Bratton is going to be able to tap dance around that by painting the father as a bad man.”

At a home around the corner from Raul’s Auto Sales, where Pena and her daughter died, Susie’s mother again blamed the officers for her death.

“The police killed my daughter,” said Lorena Lopez, who had lived with Pena for six years, in brief comments to reporters Tuesday. “I want justice.”

At a nearby news conference, Luis Carrillo, an attorney representing the family, placed the police action in what he called “a long history of excessive force against minorities” and an equal history of covering it up by the LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The suspect’s brother, German Pena, said the police “didn’t have any patience. Knowing that my niece was with him, they should have acted more patiently.”

German Pena said that during the standoff, police rejected family members’ offers to try to reason with his brother.

“It’s cruel what happened to my brother,” he said, brushing tears from his eyes. “He was a good person.”

“Mr. Pena is not a good man,” an infuriated Bratton said at a news conference later in the afternoon. “He is not a loving, caring father under any circumstances. You don’t threaten to kill your wife. You don’t attempt to kill your 17-year-old daughter. You don’t threaten to kill your 17-month-old baby and hold that baby as a shield, “ he said tensely. “So all this nonsense -- how loving and caring this individual was. He was none of those things.”

Police have previously said that Pena had been accused of child molestation.

In defending his officers’ actions, Bratton offered new details of the police version of the shootout. It began about 2 p.m. Sunday when “officers took a domestic terror report from his wife,” meaning Lopez. Bratton said officers responded, taking a report of the incident from Lopez.

At 3:47 p.m., police took a 911 call from the car dealership placed by Pena’s stepdaughter, whose name was not released, Bratton said. The girl told police that her father was threatening her and asked for help. A patrol car was dispatched while an operator tried to call back. Someone answered the phone and did not speak, but a struggle was heard.

When police got there, Pena shot at them.

The stepdaughter, trapped, was able to escape about 5 p.m. as police returned Pena’s gunfire in the direction of the girl and officers, police said. Once she was free, she told them he had ingested cocaine and alcohol, and related threats he allegedly made against the entire family.

“Her father had threatened to kill her, kill the baby, kill himself and the mother,” Bratton said.

An LAPD sergeant got Pena on the phone and hostage negotiators spoke to him about 5:30 p.m. -- the last time the department had any contact with him inside the building. Before abruptly ending talks, Pena told negotiators he was not going to go to prison, Bratton said.

About 6:20 p.m., SWAT team members fired at Pena again, then moved in, falsely believing he had been wounded and was down near the door to the store. They believed the child was alive. Once inside, they discovered Pena was mobile and shooting at them from behind the wall of a small office. After they set off a “flash bang” device, SWAT Officer Daniel Sanchez, 39, was hit by a bullet in the right shoulder and was pulled out of the line of fire by colleagues.

Officers returned fire -- in the third and final exchange with the suspect that day. When the shooting was over, 60 rounds had been fired inside the small space. Susie was found dead near the office door with a wound to her head. Pena was found dead behind a desk.

“It may be confirmed the child was killed by the police but that doesn’t change the circumstances,” Bratton said. “It just compounds the tragedy.”

“This is a highly emotional individual with many, many problems,” he said of the suspect. “Mr. Pena had a number of actions with the police.”

Bratton refused to detail any of Pena’s previous interactions with police.

Police said the stepdaughter was taken to a mental health facility after the incident because “she was blamed by the family for what happened.”

As police and family members clashed about Pena’s character and the shootout circumstances, the inquiry into what took place in the small car dealership near 104th Street and Avalon Boulevard continued. The investigation was focused on the crucial moments when SWAT officers gave up their defensive position to storm the building.

Experts in police tactics said Tuesday that the actions of the officers appear to fall within general SWAT guidelines. As the inquiry moves forward, experts said, investigators will probably focus on what was said and done in the moments before Pena and Susie were shot to death.

While police often try to wait out hostage situations in hopes that they can be resolved peacefully, experts said the circumstances of this case may have warranted immediate action because the suspect was firing at officers and reportedly threatened to kill himself and Susie.

Once the SWAT team entered the building and realized Pena was still shooting, the team’s options were hard to assess, said Jeffrey Eglash, a former federal prosecutor and past inspector general for the Los Angeles Police Commission.

“They may have been able to retreat, they may have been able to find cover, they may have felt that the danger to the child was so great that they needed to stop,” the suspect, Eglash said.

Bratton said his officers -- who he has said are traumatized by the child’s death -- were “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

“If a police officer is injured or a suspect goes down there may well be a need to go in,” said Bratton, noting reasons for immediate SWAT action. “In Columbine if you remember they didn’t move in fast enough and they were severely criticized -- because things were going on inside.”

The 1999 high school shooting in Colorado left 15 dead, including the two assailants. It took the SWAT team there hours to clear the building as officials feared the gunmen were still alive -- leaving the wounded without help. An investigation into police actions that day later found that a teacher died of his wounds during the long wait.

The investigation into Sunday’s shooting will rely on the medical examiners’ reports, interviews with the SWAT officers and other evidence, including any video from surveillance cameras at Pena’s business. Assistant Police Chief George Gascon said that as many as six cameras may have captured images from around the building and the stored images will be reviewed.

Coroner’s officials said Tuesday that police placed a security hold on the autopsy results because of the pending investigation. At the news conference, however, Bratton said there was no police hold, and he welcomed the coroner’s report to settle how Pena and his daughter died.

“It is quite likely our officers killed both the suspect and the baby,” he said. “We’re not going to hide that.”

Merrick Bobb, who serves as the Board of Supervisor’s special counsel on Sheriff’s Department matters, said investigators will look to answer numerous questions, among them why negotiations were cut off, what the suspect said, who was communicating with Pena, a native of El Salvador, and in what language. Also relevant, he said, was whether bystanders could have been injured or killed by stray bullets.

On Tuesday night, more than 100 protesters and neighbors gathered at the shooting scene for a candlelight vigil in memory of Susie Lopez.

Najee Ali, director of Project Islamic Hope, said the department’s record of confrontation warrants a thorough look into this case.

Pena is “not going to win any father of the year award ... but let’s focus in on the investigation and not a smear campaign,” Ali said.

Times staff writers Anna Gorman, Jessica Gresko, Jean Guccione, Jill Leovy, Caitlin Liu and Valerie Reitman contributed to this report.