Police Sued Over Special Unit’s Shooting of Robbers

Lawyers representing a 6-year-old boy whose bank-robbing parents were shot by police in 1982 filed a $10-million lawsuit against Los Angeles police officials Monday, alleging that detectives executed the boy’s father and wounded his mother after watching them commit a robbery.

John Henry Crumpton IV, in whose behalf the civil rights lawsuit was filed, was a 3-month-old fetus when his mother was wounded and his father killed by members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Investigations Section.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court by attorney Stephen Yagman, alleges that the SIS, a secretive 19-man surveillance unit, is a “death squad . . . whose mission (is) to execute persons targeted by LAPD.”

“The existence of this unit in Los Angles, indeed in the United States of America, is something that is both offensive and astounding,” Yagman said at a press conference.

In addition to seeking monetary damages, the lawsuit asks that federal authorities either disband the unit or directly supervise it. According to police officials, the SIS has no specific guidelines governing its activities.

Named as defendants in the case were Mayor Tom Bradley, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, the chief’s five predecessors, present and former members of the civilian-run Los Angeles Police Commission and 27 Los Angeles police officers who either participated in the surveillance of the boy’s parents or investigated the shooting of them afterward.

Cmdr. William Booth, spokesman for Gates, criticized the lawsuit as “spurious” and condemned Yagman’s depiction of the SIS as “outrageous.”

September Report

The Times in September reported that for nearly 23 years, teams of well-armed SIS detectives have tailed career criminals, sometimes for weeks, and often have ignored opportunities to prevent armed robberies and burglaries by legitimately arresting suspects beforehand on lesser crimes. SIS detectives have watched dozens of criminals plan and then carry out potentially deadly felonies, and have killed and wounded many of them afterward.

In the case of John Crumpton III and his wife, Jane Elizabeth Berry, SIS surveillance lasted 18 days. The couple, both paroled bank robbers, had been linked by witnesses to five bank robberies in the San Fernando Valley and already were wanted on federal felony warrants for parole violations, The Times found.

Theoretically, they could have been arrested at any time on the federal warrants. But because investigators could not conclusively link the couple to the robberies, the SIS was assigned to shadow them, police records show. On Sept. 15, 1982, after 18 days on intermittent surveillance, 13 SIS detectives and a police helicopter followed them as Crumpton stole a car and then watched as they repeatedly drove past a Security Pacific Bank branch in Burbank, which they were believed to have robbed a month earlier.

Detectives watched Crumpton, 33, and Berry, 36, park their own car behind a nearby apartment complex, and then watched them drive the stolen car to the bank, parking behind it. The detectives watched the couple pull on rubber masks and gloves but did not stop them from walking in and robbing the bank again.

When Berry and Crumpton returned to the car, four SIS detectives surprised them. When the pair allegedly turned toward them, the officers fired 18 times, killing Crumpton and wounding Berry.

Police reports contend that both suspects “whirled” in the officers’ direction and reached for their waists after being ordered to put their hands up. Crumpton, who was unarmed, was hit by more than 40 shotgun pellets and killed. An autopsy report and Los Angeles police forensic documents show that all his wounds were inflicted from the rear.

Berry was armed but never pulled the pistol that police said was tucked in her waistband. She was hit by 14 pellets, all from the rear.

Similarly, autopsy reports show that 16 of 22 other suspects killed by SIS detectives were shot once or more from behind.

Berry later pleaded guilty to robbery and was sent to prison, where she delivered a healthy John Crumpton IV, who resides today with an aunt in Hawthorne. The boy’s mother will be eligible for parole in 1993 but faces another 44 months in federal custody for the parole violations that were specified in the arrest warrant that SIS detectives failed to execute in 1982.