Decision Due on Charges in Case of Police Pistol Caper

The Orange County district attorney’s office is expected to decide by Monday whether to bring criminal charges against a group of off-duty Santa Ana police officers for allegedly firing shots that struck a county supervisor’s office.

The results of the Santa Ana Police Department’s criminal investigation were presented to the district attorney’s office Friday for review, Capt. Robert H. Stebbins said. A separate, internal investigation should be completed early next week, he added.

The Police Department has refused to identify the officers involved in the June incident, but on Friday sources close to the investigation said two of the seven involved were Scott Zimmerman and James Bland, both of whom have resigned from the force.

Publicized Incident

Bland, a 30-year-old, six-year veteran, was involved in a highly publicized incident two years ago in which he shot a 53-year-old Laotian man who lunged at him with a long kitchen knife after threatening to kill neighbors. The man, Linthong Panyanak, died of what Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates later determined to be an aneurysm. Investigators for the police and the district attorney’s office found that Bland’s use of deadly force was justifiable.

The seven officers involved in the shooting incident allegedly were celebrating the end of a probationary period for some rookie officers. They drove to the roof of the Orange County Transit District parking garage on Santa Ana Boulevard on June 18 after a night of drinking, according to sources close to the case.

Five of the officers fired their weapons shortly before 3 a.m., the sources said, and two bullets struck windows across the street, lodging high in a wall in the office of Suzanne Victor, an aide to Supervisor Roger R. Stanton. No one was in the office.

A transit district security guard, Dale Johnson, reported hearing shots, but a Santa Ana police officer sent to check the scene reported finding nothing 20 minutes later.

The sources said the two who didn’t fire are not targets of the investigation.

It was not clear why Zimmerman and Bland resigned. Neither could be reached for comment.

Zimmerman, who had worked as a police officer in Portland, Ore., before coming to Orange County, has reportedly returned to Portland to take over his ailing father’s business. One source said that Zimmerman had inquired before the shooting incident about taking a leave of absence and that he had resigned after returning from a visit with his hospitalized father.

The results of the Police Department’s criminal inquiry were handed over to the district attorney’s office Friday morning, said Stebbins, who headed the inquiry. Deputy Dist. Atty. Maurice L. Evans said he expects to decide Monday whether to prosecute any of the officers.

Separate Investigations

The two investigations must by law be conducted separately, said Deputy City Atty. Terence Grace, who is participating in the internal inquiry. He said he expects Police Chief Raymond C. Davis will receive a copy of the report on the internal investigation Monday.

Seth Kelsey, an attorney for the Santa Ana Police Officers Benevolent Assn., said Friday that Grace had displayed “a surprising lack of ethics” by promising one of the officers involved light discipline in exchange for his cooperation and then abruptly withdrawing that offer. Grace, who handles all police-related legal matters for the city, made the offer Wednesday and said the officer would have until Monday to decide whether to accept, Kelsey said.

Kelsey said the offer was withdrawn in a letter to his office Friday. He added that the other two officers still with the department had decided to cooperate voluntarily, and he theorized that Grace had then decided to withdraw the deal.

Grace declined to comment, but his boss, City Atty. Edward J. Cooper, said the offer was withdrawn after “new information came to light” indicating the officer had lied. “So we felt no moral or ethical bounds to keep that offer open,” Cooper said.

However, Kelsey said the officer hadn’t consciously lied but had been incorrect on “nit-picking minutiae of details” about the incident. He said his client had admitted being present and firing his weapon.

‘Consequence of Drinking’

“The department seized on those little details as significant. But those details varied from officer to officer,” Kelsey continued. “As I told Mr. Grace, their state of mind was somewhat clouded by drinking at the time. That’s a natural consequence of drinking.”

If any discipline harsher than what was promised in Grace’s offer is handed down by the department next week, Kelsey said, he will fight it and will appeal the decision to the courts if necessary. Kelsey added that, because the gunfire didn’t result in any injury and the officers involved have good service records with the department, severe discipline isn’t warranted.

“The incident was clearly an error in judgment on the part of the officers involved,” he said. “But the way the department has approached it, I believe, shows a lack of administrative capability.”

Kelsey also argued that one of the officers involved was ordered to answer questions about the incident by a supervising officer even though he had asserted his constitutional right to remain silent. “I advised him to answer the questions since he was facing insubordination charges, even though I believe his constitutional rights were being violated,” he said.

However, Stebbins said an officer’s right to decline to answer questions extends only to criminal matters. In an internal investigation, officers are obligated to respond to “reasonable orders of a superior officer” or face insubordination charges, he said.