Police Rerun Test on Guns Involved in Bandit Death

The pistols used by police and Border Patrol agents in the fatal shooting of a Mexican border bandit are undergoing a second round of ballistics tests to determine how the man was shot, San Diego police officials said Wednesday.

Homicide Lt. Paul Ybarrondo said the new tests are being done to “reevaluate” the evidence. He denied that they represent a reversal of an earlier stand taken by Chief Bill Kolender, who said there was no reason for police to reopen the investigation.

“We’re reevaluating all the evidence, including the guns. It’s routine, a reevaluation,” said Ybarrondo, insisting that this did not indicate that the investigation was being reopened.

Ybarrondo said he did not know when the results of the new tests would be available, and when asked what police expected to learn from them, he said, “There’s nothing new that we expect to find out.”

Police have reported that Julio Arroyo Zaragoza was shot from a distance of 30 to 40 feet. Arroyo’s brother, Jaime Arroyo Zaragoza, 23, who is charged with robbery and attempted murder in the incident, maintains that police killed his brother after he was wounded and disarmed.

An autopsy conducted May 6 by the county coroner’s office supported the police version of the shooting. But Arroyo’s body was exhumed from a Tijuana cemetery Aug. 26, and an autopsy report by Dr. Gustavo Salazar, the Tijuana coroner, said that Arroyo was shot at point-blank range. Tissue samples from Arroyo’s skull have been taken to San Diego for laboratory tests.

Dr. Hormez Guard, a former San Diego County pathologist and now a critic of the coroner’s office, studied the samples and found traces of gunpowder. He said that Arroyo was shot with a pistol placed on his forehead. Last week, three county pathologists studied the samples and said they could not find any traces of gunpowder.

Two weeks ago, Kolender said he saw no reason to look into the controversial May 4 shooting and said that he stood by a police report that said Arroyo, 33, was shot in self-defense by Officer Cesar Solis. Arroyo was shot in the middle of the forehead, at the hairline, during a gun battle with members of the Border Crimes Prevention Unit. The unit was formed to combat border banditry, and is composed of San Diego police officers and Border Patrol agents who conduct nighttime patrols in the canyons along the international border.

According to a police ballistics test performed in May, Solis fired the fatal 9-millimeter bullet that killed Arroyo. The results of the ballistic tests were announced on May 13. Initially, Ybarrondo had said that Agent Fred Stevens, who was shot five times by Arroyo, had fired the fatal shot. Stevens, 39, was saved by an armored vest and is back on duty.

A police report said that Stevens fired six .38-caliber rounds from his .357-magnum revolver. On May 6, Ybarrondo said police were not sure if it was Stevens who fired the fatal shot because Agent John Crocitto had also fired three .38-caliber rounds from his .357-magnum revolver. But after the ballistics tests were completed, Ybarrondo said it was actually Solis, using a 9-millimeter handgun, who fired the shot that killed Arroyo.

Kolender could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Deputy Chief Ken O’Brien said that Kolender and he were satisfied with the first investigation of the shooting. But O’Brien said he did not know that the police laboratory was conducting the second set of ballistics tests and later in the telephone interview called them “insignificant.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Williams said the tests are being done “for a reason totally unrelated to the case” but declined to elaborate. In addition to the guns fired by Stevens, Solis and Crocitto, Williams said, the .38-caliber pistol fired by Julio Arroyo and the .22-caliber gun taken from Jaime Arroyo will also be test fired. Police have said that Jaime Arroyo did not fire his pistol.

Jose Tafolla, attorney for Jaime Arroyo, said he was not surprised by the new tests. Last week, Williams agreed to order San Diego police and the Border Patrol to turn over the officers’ and agents’ guns to Tafolla so he could conduct his own ballistics tests.

On Tuesday, Tafolla said he expected police investigators to conduct a second set of tests on all of the guns used in the incident before handing them over to him.

Meanwhile, district attorney spokesman Steve Casey said Wednesday that his office had not reached a decision on a request by Mexican Consul General Javier Escobar that Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller reopen the investigation.

Casey said that Miller is attending a crime conference in Washington and will return next week, when he is expected to respond to Escobar’s request.