Supervisor’s Windows Shattered : D.A. Says No Charges in Police Pistol Firing

The Orange County district attorney’s office announced Wednesday that it will not file criminal charges against five Santa Ana police officers who allegedly fired shots that broke windows in a county supervisor’s office during a session of late-night revelry in June.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Maurice L. Evans, who reviewed the results of the Police Department’s criminal investigation, said there was not enough evidence to prove which of the five officers fired their weapons.

The only charge prosecutors considered, Evans said, was a possible violation of the Santa Ana municipal code that outlaws discharging a weapon in the city. That is a misdemeanor.

A total of seven off-duty officers allegedly gathered atop the Orange County Transit District parking structure in the early morning hours of June 18 after a night of drinking, sources have said. But only five of them--James Bland, Paul Coulter, Jill Tangedal, Jesse Teshima and Scott Zimmerman--actually fired their guns, according to sources.

Evans identified the five officers Wednesday. Two of them have resigned from the force, and the other three were formally notified Monday that the department may fire them as a result of an internal investigation.

Government employees are entitled to hearings after being officially notified of threatened disciplinary action. Such hearings had not be scheduled as of Wednesday, Deputy Police Chief Eugene Hansen said. The officers have until Friday to request them.

At those hearings the officers could present any mitigating circumstances to Hansen before a final decision on the disciplinary action against them. Their last resort other than a lawsuit would be a city personnel board hearing.

It is still not clear what disciplinary action the two officers who did not shoot will face. However, sources said Wednesday that they probably will be given time off without pay at the very least.

Those officers were identified by sources close to the case as Geraldine Bucene and Daniel Armanderez.

In explaining why criminal charges were not filed, Evans acknowledged that the five officers who allegedly fired their weapons have made statements to internal affairs investigators that might have implicated them. But, he said, those statements are “legally inadmissible in any criminal review and were not made part of the investigative reports presented to our office.”

Number of Shots Unknown

Evans said the five officers refused to make statements during a separate criminal investigation by the Police Department.

It is not known how many shots were fired from the top of the parking structure, but two bullets broke windows and lodged high in the wall of the office of an aide to Supervisor Roger R. Stanton.

A security guard initially reported shots being fired off the parking structure to Santa Ana police, but an officer who arrived at the scene left after 20 minutes. Police have said that officer found no evidence of shots being fired.

Stanton’s office reported the bullet holes about 8 a.m. June 18 to the Sheriff’s Department, which patrols county buildings, but the case was subsequently turned over to the Santa Ana Police Department, which began an internal investigation. A separate criminal investigation was launched July 2, according to Capt. Robert Stebbins, who heads the criminal investigation unit that conducted the probe.

Hansen would not discuss the backgrounds of the seven officers who were investigated, stating that the department’s confidentiality policies prohibit that.

But other sources close to the investigation said all seven--described as in their 20s--are assigned to patrol and that none of them holds the rank of sergeant or above.

Repeated attempts to reach the officers have been unsuccessful.

Bland and Zimmerman--both of whom were active in the Santa Ana Police Officers Benevolent Assn.--resigned after the June incident, but it was not clear whether the department’s criminal and internal investigations prompted their resignations. Zimmerman had told other officers his father was gravely ill, sources said, and that he was considering quitting to take over his father’s business in Portland, Ore.

‘Very Likable Guy’

Zimmerman had been on the force about four years, one officer who knew him said, and “he was a very likable guy. People looked up to him. He did a good job on the streets.”

In the June-July police union newsletter, Zimmerman had written an article entitled “One for the Money, Two for the Show,” in which he said the department employs an inadequate number of sworn officers to patrol the city. He said the department has employed so many uniformed civilian officers that the public has the mistaken belief that the department is adequately staffed.

Bland, a six-year veteran of the department who previously had worked as a reserve officer, was involved in a 1984 shooting that attracted considerable attention. He shot a Laotian man who, neighbors said, had threatened to kill them after the man lunged at Bland with an 18-inch knife.

Some community members initially accused Bland--who wounded the man four times--of using excessive force. But Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates attributed the man’s death to an aneurysm and the district attorney’s office ruled that Bland was justified in his use of deadly force.