Man Struck With Police Baton Dies After 2 1/2 Weeks in Coma

A 26-year-old Los Angeles man struck on the head with a police baton when he allegedly resisted arrest last month has died of injuries he received in the incident, officials said Wednesday.

William Roy Retana, a central Los Angeles resident, died after being taken off life-support systems Sunday at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, where he remained in a coma after being injured.

Both the Los Angeles Police Department and the district attorney’s office are conducting independent investigations into Retana’s death, which has been ruled an accident by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Officer Vincent C. Rodriguez, 24, who struck Retana in the head, was attempting to subdue Retana by using a baseball bat-like “two-handed power stroke” directed toward the shoulders, according to police. The baton glanced off Retana’s shoulder, striking him on the left side of the head just above the ear, police said.

However, members of Retana’s family have said they could find no bruises or other marks that would indicate a baton blow to his shoulder, and they have alleged that police were reckless and used unnecessary force.

Police said that Retana had been drinking during the early morning hours of Oct. 19 and tried to break into a home in the 3900 block of Glenfeliz Boulevard before Sgt. Ranel D. Johnson, 42, arrived. Retana “attempted to grab” Johnson, who retreated to his patrol car and radioed for help, police said.

Rodriguez and another officer, Derek A. Brandon, 26, arrived and got out of their patrol car. Almost immediately, the 6-foot-1, 159-pound Retana, a delivery driver and member of the U.S. Air Force reserve, approached them in a “hostile manner,” shouting, “Shoot me! Shoot me!” police said.

When Retana attempted to grab Rodriguez, Johnson swung his baton, striking without apparent effect on the backs of Retana’s legs and on his back, according to police. When Retana again attempted to grab Rodriguez, the officer gripped his baton with both hands and swung for the shoulders, but hit Retana’s head, police said. The suspect seemed dazed and suddenly collapsed, they said.

Two witnesses to the incident, waiter Steve Trunfio and his girlfriend, waitress Erin McClure, confirmed much of the police version. Trunfio and McClure, both 21, watched the confrontation from her house across the street.

“I heard loud voices and saw a man running around after a police officer,” Trunfio said Wednesday. “The officer (Johnson) had his gun drawn but didn’t fire. He kept backing up. We went out and started shouting, ‘Don’t shoot him!’ The officer went back around his car and radioed for back-up. . . .”

As Rodriguez and Brandon arrived, Retana turned toward them and demanded they shoot him, McClure said. Retana reached into his pants as if he had a gun and that was when two of the officers wielded their batons, McClure said.

“Boom, boom, boom--legs, back, head; it all happened so fast,” McClure recalled.

“The sound of the hit on the back of his head was amazing,” Trunfio said. “It sounded like it shattered his skull. The guy went down and that was that. . . . He lay there and the officers put their guns away and radioed for an ambulance. It seemed like they didn’t check his condition. . . . I remember one officer put his foot underneath the guy and kind of nudged him.”

Trunfio said residents told him later that Retana had been visiting a girlfriend in the neighborhood that night.

Police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth said that Los Angeles officers are given extensive training in the use of the two-foot-long, side-handled baton that most patrol officers carry, but “that training does not include hitting someone in the head.”