Man Convicted in Shootings of Police Officers

A suspected narcotics dealer was convicted Tuesday of two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter stemming from a December, 1983, shoot-out with Los Angeles police that left two detectives wounded.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury returned the verdicts against Edwin P. Donelson, 26, of Los Angeles after deliberating for three days in the court of Judge Michael Berg.

Jurors acquitted Donelson of more serious charges of attempted murder in the shootings of Detective Norman R. Eckles, 37, who was paralyzed from the chest down and has retired, and Detective Louie C. Nettles, 46, who was hospitalized briefly for treatment of a bullet fragment wound in his forehead.

16 Officers

The wounded detectives were among 16 officers who had gathered outside Donelson’s apartment, in the 6000 block of Brynhurst Avenue, with a search warrant authorizing an early-morning drug raid.

Officers testified that they repeatedly identified themselves as police and pounded on Donelson’s door but got no response. Officers said they heard the sound of someone running inside the apartment, then began breaking down the door. Eckles said he broke a window with his flashlight and was hit by gunfire as he tried to part drapes to look inside.

In arguing in favor of convictions for attempted murder, Deputy Dist. Atty. George Knoke contended that Donelson knew, or should have known, that he was shooting at police officers and deliberately tried to kill them.

(Murder is defined as an unlawful killing with malice; voluntary manslaughter, a lesser offense, as an unlawful killing in the heat of passion. A conviction for attempted voluntary manslaughter is rare.)

Had Been Asleep

Donelson testified that he had been asleep, was awakened by people he thought were burglars and fired shots in self-defense to scare them off.

The defendant was also convicted of two counts of assault on a peace officer and assault with a firearm in the shooting of a passer-by, Laverne Pennie, who was wounded in the leg.

Jurors also found him guilty of firing into an inhabited dwelling and being a felon--with a prior robbery conviction--in possession of a gun.

He was acquitted of a charge that he possessed cocaine. Knoke said a Los Angeles police chemist said that a trace of the drug found in two bags near a toilet was too small to measure.

Donelson faces from 10 to 23 years in prison when sentenced Feb. 27, Knoke said.