Radio Mixup Blamed in Jewel Store Siege Death

The sheriff’s marksman who killed Van Cleef & Arpels manager Hugh Skinner by mistake might have realized that his target was a hostage--and not the gunman--if his police radio had been turned on all day, the Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who investigated the shooting said Tuesday.

The sharpshooter, Deputy George Johnson, testified that he killed Skinner, 64, with a single rifle bullet to the chest because he had been told by the command post that no white male hostages had been taken in the June 23 robbery attempt.

But Johnson’s team leader told district attorney’s investigators that by afternoon, he had broadcast an updated description of the five hostages over the multichannel police radio, including the fact that two were “elderly” white males, Deputy Dist. Atty. Herbert R. Lapin said.

But, as Johnson testified in Beverly Hills Municipal Court Monday, he and his spotters were listening to a sheriff’s SWAT radio. The other radio had been turned off to conserve the batteries, the marksman said at a preliminary hearing for Steven Livaditis, who was ordered to stand trial for three murders and 12 other felonies in connection with the siege.

“The radio only heard by the SWAT team is the one they left on,” Lapin said, “and (Sgt. John) Martin broadcast over the other one.”

Report Cleared Officer

Lapin, a member of the district attorney’s Special Investigations Division, was interviewed in connection with a report made public Tuesday that clears Johnson in Skinner’s death on grounds that “he fired his weapon in attempt to protect the hostages and to apprehend their abductor.”

But at the same time, the report cites “inconsistencies” in how different police officers reported what they knew about the racial makeup of the five hostages during the 13 1/2-hour siege of the Rodeo Drive jewelry store that left three people dead.

“There appear to be some inconsistencies between the descriptions of the incident as related by Sheriff’s Department personnel and those given by Beverly Hills Police Department personnel,” the report states.

Skinner and William Richard Smith, 54, a security guard stabbed to death inside the store, were white, as is Livaditis, who will be tried for their murders. Livaditis, 22, also is accused of killing saleswoman Ann Heilperin, 40.

Martin, Johnson’s team leader, told investigators that he was initially “advised by a Beverly Hills police sergeant, whose name he did not know, that a robbery suspect was inside the location with two male black hostages, two Caucasian female hostages and possibly a fifth (undescribed) hostage,” the report says.

But contradicting Martin, “Beverly Hills officers . . . stated that a different and accurate description of the hostages had been initially given to the sheriff’s Special Enforcement Bureau (which oversees SWAT operations) when sheriff’s personnel first arrived at the Beverly Hills command post,” the report says.

The description Martin said he transmitted over the multichannel police radio later in the afternoon was “that there were two elderly male white hostages and two female white hostages,” according to Lapin.

But Johnson testified that the information he had been given by the command post shortly after he arrived on duty about 11:30 a.m. was never updated and that when Deputy John Rhodes arrived at between 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. to relieve the original spotter, Rhodes’ description of the hostages meshed with what the sharpshooter had been told.

About 11:30 p.m., Johnson saw several people flee the jewelry store under a makeshift drape, he testified. Then, he said, he heard someone yell, “If you try to stop me, I’m going to kill them all.”

Two flash grenades were detonated, and one man became separated from the others, the marksman said. His spotter screamed that the man was holding a “shiny object.”

“I ascertained that he was Caucasian . . . which immediately led me to believe that he was the suspect,” Johnson said, adding that he fired because “I thought he (Skinner) was pointing a gun.”

Commenting on Johnson’s account, Lapin said, “I have no alternative but to believe him because he was supported by a number of other deputies.”

Spokesmen for the Beverly Hills Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department declined comment, citing pending claims filed by relatives of Skinner and by the two survivors, saleswoman Carol Lambert, 42, and shipping clerk Robert Taylor, 60.

A $5-million claim on behalf of each of the survivors was filed Tuesday against the City of Beverly Hills and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Times staff writer Nancy Graham contributed to this story.