Anger Runs High in Neighbors’ Reaction to Slaying by Police

Despite several days of cooling off after 18-year-old Frank Martinez was shot and killed by a Westminster police officer, emotions still ran high in Martinez’s Latino neighborhood Monday.

“My brother Frank was not a gang member,” said one of Frank’s older brothers, Joel Martinez. “He was a coach for baseball and helped kids at the Boys’ Club where he worked. He was young. . . . He didn’t need to die.”

Signs hastily taped to telephone poles along Olive Street where Martinez lived exclaimed: “Running from the police is not a crime! Killing a teen-ager is!”

Martinez died Friday in the driveway of his home, shot by an unidentified officer who police say was on the ground being kicked and beaten.

“Because of community tensions and department policy, we are not going to reveal the identities of the officer or of the officers involved at this time,” Westminster Police Chief James I. Cook said Monday during a press conference.

Cook acknowledged that since Friday’s shooting, the police have received several anonymous threats by people angry about the department’s actions.

Although Cook described to reporters the series of events that led up to Martinez’s shooting, he deferred all questions concerning the actual shooting to the county district attorney’s office, which is investigating the incident.

The district attorney’s investigation is expected to be completed in four to six weeks, Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown said.

Cook said the incident began Friday while police were trying to find gang members suspected of battering a car and kidnaping two of its passengers.

“You have to understand we had a report of two girls being kidnaped and gang activity in the area. This was serious,” Cook said.

Police said Martinez ran from them after he allegedly punched an officer who had been questioning his brother, Joel, about the battered car.

When Martinez fled up his driveway, he was pursued by at least three officers, police said. At the time, 20 to 30 people were attending a birthday party for Martinez’s mother, Amanda, in the back yard.

One officer said he was tripped, kicked and beaten, while the other two said they were knocked to the ground and beaten by a hostile crowd.

“All the officers lost their batons,” Cook said. “People were tugging at the officers, trying to get their weapons. With one officer they tugged so hard trying to get his gun they ripped his pants leg.

“The officers felt that they were honestly going to die. (From interviews) they said they were in great fear of their lives,” Cook said, defending the shooting as “legal.”

Frank Martinez struck one officer with a bottle and was coming at another when that officer pulled his revolver and fired one shot, Cook said.

Another officer then fired three shots into the air and the crowd dispersed, he said. Cook defended his officers, saying they acted “within their authority,” based on physical evidence and interviews he has conducted with them.

“The officers had a right to fresh pursuit to follow the violator (Martinez) and arrest him,” he said. “As for the shooting, the only time you can use fatal force is when you are confronted with fatal force. Our department policy is you must have fatal force or a degree of force extended to you where you are in serious jeopardy.”

Martinez’s brother, Joel Mendez Martinez, 22--who later was arrested on suspicion of assault on a police officer, which is a felony--continued to contradict the police version of events Monday.

He said the trouble was started by the abusiveness of one police officer.

According to Martinez, he was stopped on a sidewalk and said to the officer, “What’s the charge? What’s the charge?”

Cook said Martinez had his left hand tucked behind him as if he was hiding something--which Martinez denied.

“Joel then dropped his head and charged the officer,” Cook said.

But Martinez denied Cook’s account.

“I remember the cop came up to me, and when I asked what’s the charge, and he said, ‘Let’s try: Being an (obscenity) in public.’

“I didn’t want to be arrested or touched by this guy,” Martinez said.

Mary Herring--wife of John Herring, the executive director for the Boys’ Club of Westminster--said she and her husband attended the Friday night party.

She said that she did not see anyone trip any officers as they pursued Frank Martinez from the driveway to the back yard and that she was standing in the driveway when Martinez sprinted past her.

She said that she did see a police officer running toward her on the gravel driveway and that then “he stumbled right in front of me.”

Debbie Watkins, another witness, said the officer “lost his balance and kind of like tripped but didn’t fall.”

Robert Watkins, who is Debbie’s father and said he has known the Martinez family for two years, remembered immediately falling to the ground when the shooting started Friday.

“When I saw the firing I hit the ground because I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said. “I was about 50 feet from where it was going on. I hit the dirt when I heard the shots. It sounded like four rapid shots, and one went plunk . . . like it hit something.” Watkins and others interviewed said the entire incident lasted just a few brief moments. Most did not know the seriousness of the shooting until someone screamed that Frank Martinez had been hit.

Herring said she and her husband had been bowling with Martinez’s parents, Amanda and Joel Martinez Sr. They had delayed the mother’s arrival at the bowling alley to help “surprise” her at her home.

She said Martinez’s brother, Joel Jr., had not been among a group that kicked the police officer who fell around the side of the house. She said Joel was being handcuffed toward the front of the house at the time.

Herring, as did others, depicted the Martinez family as a close-knit, polite family: “With Frankie (Martinez), everything was ‘Yes, ma’am,’ or ‘No ma’am.’ He was kind of shy and got embarrassed very easily. . . . I always commended her on how polite her children were.”

Martinez was a student-athlete who played basketball at Westminster High School and was known as a “polite” and soft-spoken youth, according to friends and acquaintances. His girlfriend, Kimi Tupuola, 15, said: “Frank was not a gang member.”

Frank’s older brother, Robert, has been the athletic director at the Boys’ Club for several years, and most of the family is well known as volunteers for youth activities.

Neighbors along Olive Street on Monday rejected Cook’s assertion that Frank Martinez or his brothers were involved in gangs.

“The whole thing was unnecessary,” said a neighbor, Javier Cuevas, 25. “At least the police could have stopped and talked to the people. You have to understand (that) this was at a birthday party for Frank’s mother.”

A large sign hung in front of Cuevas’ home. Other signs, seeking a public apology from police, hung nearby.

“You gotta understand, that’s the way we feel around here,” Cuevas said. “Everybody knew everybody. We all knew Frankie.”

Times staff writer Richard Beene contributed to this report.