Policeman Killed, 2 Teen-Age Drug Suspects Are Shot

A Los Angeles policeman was fatally wounded Monday night in the Sylmar area after he and another officer engaged in a shoot-out with two teen-agers whom the officers had observed conducting an alleged drug transaction.

The two suspects, ages 17 and 19, were wounded in the gunfight and remained hospitalized Tuesday. They were expected to be charged in the slaying of Officer James H. Pagliotti, 28, a five-year veteran of the Police Department assigned to the Metropolitan Division.

“The whole LAPD will weep for him and the whole city should weep for him,” said an emotional Chief Daryl F. Gates, who went to the scene of the shooting, which occurred at about 10:15 p.m. near the Sylmar Square shopping center in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Gates, his voice quavering, called Pagliotti’s assailant a “no good son-of-a-bitch narcotics peddler . . . Two suspects were shot. They’re still alive. That’s the way things go these days. They should have died.”

Pagliotti, who lived in West Covina, was engaged to be married next month to an Azusa woman, Vicky Howden, authorities said.

In Unmarked Cars

According to investigators, Pagliotti and other plainclothes Metro officers on Monday night had a burglary suspect under surveillance. One of the officers, Randy Garcia, 31, was driving his unmarked police car toward the intersection of Astoria Street and Bromont Avenue, near the Astoria Gardens apartment complex, when he noticed two teen-agers emerge from behind a shrub and turn east toward him.

Garcia purportedly told investigators that as the two crossed the street, he saw each carrying a handgun.

Although Garcia did not apparently see any drugs change hands, “it was (his) belief, based on . . . experience and training, that because of their behavior, these were dope dealers who were either engaged or just engaged in a narcotics transaction,” Cmdr. William Booth, a department spokesman, said.

Garcia radioed for help from other Metro officers and Pagliotti, driving north on Bromont in another unmarked car, responded first.

When he arrived, Pagliotti saw the youths standing on the southeast corner of Bromont and Astoria. He stepped out of his car, identified himself as a police officer and then took cover behind the car.

The 17-year-old immediately opened fire with a handgun, said Lt. William Hall, commander of the department’s officer-involved shooting team.

As Pagliotti returned fire with his 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, his car inexplicably rolled forward, exposing the 6-foot-1, 185-pound officer. He was hit once in the chest.

He was not wearing a bulletproof vest, an option among officers in the department, Booth said.

Although mortally wounded, Pagliotti fired 14 shots, wounding the 17-year-old gunman once in the chest. As the officer fell to the pavement, the teen-ager, who is believed to have fired three shots, ran from the scene.

The second youth, meanwhile, began running toward Garcia, police said. Fearing that he too was about to be shot, Garcia fired two rounds from his 9-millimeter pistol, striking the man, later identified as Thomas Mixon, 19, once in the right shoulder.

Mixon fell and was taken into custody without further incident. He was unarmed.

The 17-year-old was later located behind a house in the 13900 block of Astoria, about a block away, where he had collapsed after fleeing. A .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol was found next to him, Hall said. Three bullets had been expended.

Theory on Gun

Police theorize that the 17-year-old and Mixon had passed the handgun between themselves moments before the shooting, leading Garcia to believe that both were armed.

Pagliotti and the 17-year-old were taken to Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, where Pagliotti was pronounced dead and the youth underwent surgery.

Citing the suspect’s age, authorities refused to discuss his condition or provide his name, but said he is expected to survive. As soon as he is healthy enough, he will be transferred to the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center jail ward and booked on suspicion of murder, authorities said.

Mixon was booked into the jail ward within hours of the shooting.

Both suspects are from South-Central Los Angeles. Investigators believe that they had driven to Sylmar to conduct rock cocaine transactions.

As for Pagliotti’s roots, they are not far from the city in which he died.

According to police records, the officer was born in Santa Barbara and graduated from Dos Pueblos High School, in nearby Goleta, in 1977. In 1981, he received a bachelor of science degree in criminology from California State University, Fresno, and spent two years as a Fresno County reserve deputy sheriff.

He joined the LAPD in April, 1982, working first as a patrolman in the 77th Street and Hollywood divisions before being assigned to the prestigious Metropolitan Division in September, 1986.

Citywide Duties

Based downtown, Metro officers range citywide, carrying out specialized patrol and plainclothes assignments like the one on which Pagliotti was killed. Metro also is home to the Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team.

Lt. Dan Cooke, another police spokesman, said that Pagliotti in his five years on the force had compiled “at least a dozen” letters of commendation from his supervisors and citizens. Monday night was Pagliotti’s first shooting incident, Cooke noted.

Pagliotti was the 163rd Los Angeles police officer killed in the line of duty since 1907, when the department began keeping such records, and the first since February, 1986, when two members of the department’s bomb squad, Arleigh E. McCree and Ronald L. Ball, died attempting to defuse an explosive device at a home in North Hollywood.

At City Hall on Tuesday, Pagliotti’s death prompted sharp words from some elected officials and mournful gestures from others.

The City Council adjourned in memory of the slain officer, but not before Councilman Ernani Bernardi, whose district includes Sylmar, encouraged his colleagues to pay closer attention to the struggle against narcotics being waged on the streets.

“I hope we give it a much higher priority than we’ve given it,” Bernardi said.

Bernardi recently won City Council approval to spend $70,000 from his office budget for police task forces to fight crime in his own East Valley district. Some of the money was allocated toward paying overtime for a special squad of officers targeting street drug sales in Astoria Gardens.

Complaints by Residents

Residents have complained for the last year that drug dealers routinely enter the 12-building complex to peddle cocaine, rob tenants and vandalize apartments and cars.

Many police officers say that the several blocks around the apartment complex, where the rents of 90% of the tenants are federally subsidized, have become Sylmar’s central drug-trading area.

One couple living across the street from Astoria Gardens said their flower garden was destroyed after they reported drug activity.

Residents of Dronfield Villas, a 72-unit condominium development nearby, said a suspected drug dealer fired a gun in April at another man and almost struck two children. Others have complained about a car being destroyed by a pipe bomb after a man confronted a cocaine dealer.

Dronfield Villas residents have begun patrolling their complex each evening, working half-hour shifts in two-person teams, carrying flashlights, walkie-talkies and sometimes guns.

“There’s a war going on out there. The council doesn’t recognize it,” Bernardi complained.

Meanwhile, Mayor Tom Bradley ordered that flags be lowered to half staff in memory of the slain officer. They are to remain lowered until sunset on the day of Pagliotti’s funeral, which is pending.

Pagliotti is survived by his parents.

Times staff writers Tracey Kaplan and Rich Simon contributed to this article.