CHP Officer Won’t Be Prosecuted in Killing of Driver

Citing insufficient evidence to prove that a crime occurred, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has declined to prosecute a California Highway Patrolman who fatally wounded a motorist when a routine traffic stop turned violent.

A 20-page report prepared by Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard B. Healey concludes that when Bruce W. Moats, 36, shot Yusuf Bilal, 38, a Southern California Rapid Transit District bus driver and graduate student, the motorcycle officer did so in the belief that he was in serious danger.

However, despite the decision not to file a complaint, Healey made it clear Friday that he and others who investigated the shooting over five months are “not happy” with tactics used by Moats when he stopped Bilal’s car March 18 in the 7100 block of South Broadway.

After ordering Bilal several times to step out of the car, the report said, Moats pulled out his baton, opened the front door on the driver’s side and jabbed Bilal to reinforce his orders. A struggle ensued, and Moats shot Bilal three times in the back.

“I think there were probably better ways to handle it than pulling out his baton,” Healey said. “The thing that occurs to me in hindsight is to call for other officers to assist him.”

After the shooting, Moats was reassigned to administrative duties in the CHP’s Torrance-area office. A decision on whether he will return to patrol duty is expected next week after completion of a final report to CHP headquarters in Sacramento.

According to Healey’s evaluation, nine witnesses heard shouts of anger and saw the struggle that ended with three gunshots and “yet the stories told . . . are often at odds with each other on points of critical importance.” Some facts were undisputed, however.

Moats was heading for his patrol area on Central Avenue in county territory about 2 p.m. when he pulled Bilal over for running a red light.

“There followed a minute or more of conversation between Bilal, seated in his car, and Moats, standing in the street at the driver’s window,” the report said. “At some point, Moats directed Bilal to step out of the car. Bilal remained within. Moats repeated the order a number of times, his voice growing louder as Bilal made no motion to leave the car.

“At length, Moats drew his baton and opened the car door. He reached within and jabbed Bilal several times with the baton. Exactly what happened next is the subject of much dispute.

Fired Shots

“Within some moments of opening the car door, Moats had lost possession of the baton and had fired three shots at Bilal, hitting him in the back.”

The report concluded that the evidence established that “Moats and Bilal struggled for possession of the baton and that Moats lost the baton.”

Moats told investigators that Bilal wrested the baton from him, swung it, threatened to kill him and got out of the car, when he drew his gun and shot the 6-foot, 1-inch, 193-pound motorist in self-defense.

When two Los Angeles Police Department officers arrived seconds after the shooting, they reported finding Bilal on his back on the ground with his right leg extending through the open car door. They found Moats’ baton inside the car on the driver’s side floorboard.

“The jabbing or poking with the baton was not ‘excessive’ in the sense that it threatened Bilal’s life or safety,” the report said. “But it might have been ‘unreasonable’ in the sense that it was demeaning and inflammatory and much likelier to excite further resistance than it was to extinguish resistance.”

Had No Right

Nevertheless, Healey reasoned that Bilal did not have the right to go on the offensive and leave the car to assault Moats.

“Taking all factors into consideration, there is evidence to suggest that Moats reasonably believed that Bilal was attacking him with the baton. . . . Having considered the evidence, we must conclude that at the moment Moats shot and killed Mr. Bilal, Moats did believe himself in serious danger and that there was evidence to support that belief,” the report said.

“That being so, it cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Moats exceeded the limits of self-defense,” the report added.

Maher Hathout, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Southern California, whose members marched on the CHP’s regional office in protest after the shooting of Bilal, who was a black Muslim, said he was “perplexed” by the decision not to prosecute.

”. . . I feel it’s a sad day for justice in California,” Hathout said. “In a country like ours, a family man, a father, a husband of a pregnant wife, a student of education and a RTD bus driver, law-abiding citizen, unarmed, not on drugs, to be killed like that and we say, ‘Let it go,’ I think is very serious.”