Bailiffs Drag Ramirez Out of Courtroom

Accused Night Stalker Richard Ramirez was wrestled to the floor and dragged from the courtroom by bailiffs Wednesday afternoon after they apparently became upset when he turned his head in the direction of a witness who was being escorted past him.

Three bailiffs repeatedly struck the lanky defendant with their fists as they jumped on him and quickly pulled him out a doorway and back to his holding cell. Ramirez, who as usual was manacled in leg chains, did not cry out during the brief struggle.

After a half-hour recess, Ramirez’s preliminary hearing continued, with the defendant grinning broadly as he was led back into the courtroom. A red scratch mark was evident on his neck, where one of the bailiffs had applied a chokehold.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge James F. Nelson--who held a brief closed session in his chambers with the bailiffs and attorneys for both sides--made no public comment on the incident.

But outside the courtroom later, defense attorney Arturo Hernandez asserted that “the judge agreed it was totally unprovoked.”

Bailiffs, however, said Ramirez provoked the attack.

Deputy Dist. Atty. P. Phillip Halpin refused to comment on the incident, which took place moments after a witness, Esparanza Gonzalez, had walked past Ramirez.

According to Hernandez, Ramirez, who had sat docilely during much of the day’s session, was turning his head to make a comment to his attorneys when bailiff Stephen DePrima rushed forward and ordered Ramirez to look straight ahead.

DePrima then grabbed Ramirez by the hair, Hernandez said, and Ramirez responded by attempting to push the bailiff’s hand away.

As he did so, DePrima and two other bailiffs pounced on Ramirez and dragged him from the courtroom. The bailiffs then locked the door to the courtroom, but an angry Hernandez, peering through a peephole, shouted repeatedly that Ramirez was still being pummeled.

“Hey, you don’t have to hit him anymore. . . . I’m watching you,” the attorney yelled.

Tom Beattie, superintendent of bailiffs in the Los Angeles Municipal Traffic Courts Building, where the hearing is under way, confirmed later that DePrima has been removed from the Ramirez hearing. But Beattie added that DePrima, 28, will not be disciplined.

Ramirez provoked the incident, Beattie said, because “he failed to follow the instructions of the bailiff. . . . We constantly have to tell him to keep his face straight ahead.”

Such instructions are given, he added, to prevent Ramirez from communicating with spectators or intimidating witnesses.

Ramirez, a 26-year-old drifter from El Paso, is charged with 14 murders and 54 other felonies in Los Angeles County in 1984 and 1985. Gonzalez, one of nine witnesses called Wednesday, testified that she turned over a gun to police that her boyfriend had earlier testified he purchased from Ramirez.

After the day’s session, Hernandez said that Ramirez had suffered scratches, but no extensive injuries. Ramirez laughed when he came back in the courtroom, Hernandez said, because he was embarrassed.

Hernandez accused Halpin of trying to provoke him into fighting. As Hernandez shouted at the bailiffs to stop hitting his client, the defense lawyer said, Halpin “was saying, ‘Why don’t you wait until they come out and beat them up?”’