Man Acquitted in Wounding of Drug Dealer

A 53-year-old man was found innocent Thursday of a charge that he assaulted a convicted drug dealer by firing a bullet that grazed her shoulder as she stood on the street outside his home in Pacoima.

“We really felt that he was just trying to scare her,” Denise Locker, 25, a juror in the San Fernando Superior Court trial, said after the verdict. “We couldn’t find the intent to do harm.”

Joe Grant, who has since moved to Santa Clarita, admitted shooting Lelatta Parks on Nov. 8, 1987 at the corner of Montford Street and Welk Avenue. He testified he had been frustrated by the spread of drug dealing in his neighborhood.

He said he saw Parks exchange a small plastic bag for money with someone in a car and assumed she was dealing drugs. He said he yelled at her to leave the area. When she refused, he got a .25-caliber pistol and fired once to scare her. The bullet grazed Parks’ shoulder.

Grant was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, a charge that requires a finding that he intended to harm Parks. He faced a maximum sentence of four years in prison if convicted.

‘Glad It’s Over’

Jurors deliberated less than a day. After the verdict was announced, Grant broke into a smile and hugged his attorney, James E. Blatt.

“I’m just glad it’s over,” Grant said. “I was holding my breath there for a while. One really never knows what a jury’s going to do.”

The verdict brought a swift response from prosecutors concerned that the jury’s finding might send a wrong signal to other citizens frustrated by crime.

“The whole community and nation of course is fed up with dope dealers and we want to get rid of them, but I don’t think the jury was out to send a message to the community that they are in favor of vigilantism,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Billy D. Webb, who heads the San Fernando prosecutor’s office. “I think they approached this as an isolated incident, based upon the facts of the case.

“I think that all the jury was saying is that she wasn’t badly injured and he was frustrated and we’re not going to make a criminal out of him because of it,” Webb said. “But I’m sure that had she been seriously injured the jury would have returned a different verdict even if she was a dope dealer. . . . I think they felt the totality of the circumstances was ‘no harm, no foul.”’

Four jurors interviewed after the trial said jurors did not advocate vigilantism.

“We believed he was trying to scare her, but it scares me to think that we would get to a stage where we would have to use a gun,” said juror Peggy Bailie, 54, of Chatsworth. “I don’t think any of us really believed in that.”

After the verdict, Bailie went to Grant’s wife, Jeannette. “You have been through a lot,” Bailie said, patting her on the shoulder.

In closing arguments at the trial Wednesday, defense attorney James E. Blatt said the legal system had failed Grant, who said he repeatedly called police and city officials complaining about drug dealing.

“He tried to go by the law and call the police, but the police couldn’t do anything,” Blatt said. “There are too many bad guys out there.”

Blatt said Thursday the shooting was “an act of frustration, defiance and a great deal of courage.”

The verdict, he said, “is a reflection of life in Los Angeles in the late ‘80s. I think this is really sending a message out there--if you’re a dope dealer, citizens are fighting back.

“The shot that Mr. Grant fired did send a message and I hope the message gets through to the politicians.”

In closing arguments, Deputy Dist. Atty. Harold S. Lynn charged that Grant had acted as “judge, jury and would-be executioner” in shooting Parks.

“It’s an intolerable situation in society to have someone take the law in his own hands,” Lynn said. “Whether you’re a dope dealer or a killer, nobody has a right to come up behind you and shoot you. Nobody is above the law.”

Parks is serving a six-month sentence for possession of drugs for sale.