FBI Investigates Alleged Brutality in Raid by LAPD

The FBI has launched a formal investigation to determine whether six Los Angeles police officers criminally violated the civil rights of an East Los Angeles family during a search of the family’s home, a Justice Department spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Department officials referred the case Feb. 1 to the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said Deborah Burstion-Wade, the spokeswoman in Washington.

“It’s an open matter, which means we are looking at the case,” she said.

Federal investigators are trying to determine whether the officers committed any violations under “color of law . . . better known as police brutality” in the case of Jessie Larez and his family, Burstion-Wade said.

Decision Will Be Made

The FBI’s findings will be forwarded to the criminal section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, where a decision will be made whether to forward the matter to a grand jury for possible indictments, she said.

Such violations, although rarely proven in court, are punishable by fines of as much as $5,000 and prison terms of one year or longer.

A Police Department spokesman said Tuesday that the department welcomed the FBI’s probe and expressed confidence that the officers will be exonerated.

“The officers were there with proper reason,” Cmdr. William Booth said. “They had a search warrant, they were investigating a murder and they were attacked by that family.”

The investigation stems from a raid in June, 1986, at the Larez home by members of the Police Department’s anti-gang unit, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums.

The raid occurred after CRASH officers said they had been tipped that one of Larez’s sons, Edward, was harboring a murder weapon. No gun was found, but during the search, which was preceded at 7:01 a.m. with officers breaking windows of the house as a diversion, Jessie Larez’s nose was broken, his daughter, Diane, was yanked to the floor by her hair and numerous household items were smashed.

Dismissed Complaint

The family formally complained to the Police Department that excessive force had been used, but the officers’ supervisors concluded that the operation was conducted within department policy and dismissed the complaint.

In October, 1988, after the Larezes had sued the Police Department, a federal court jury in Los Angeles awarded the family $90,503 in punitive and actual damages against the officers. Two months later, the same jury held Police Chief Daryl F. Gates accountable for the officers’ actions and ordered the chief to personally pay more than $170,000 in punitive damages.

City officials have appealed the case.

The Larezes’ attorney, Stephen Yagman, expressed confidence Tuesday that the Justice Department would seek to prosecute the officers. Said Yagman: “The Justice Department is going to do for Daryl Gates what I never could for him: make him a defendant in a criminal case.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for City Atty. James K. Hahn dismissed as premature any discussion of whether his office would defend the officers in a criminal case were one brought by the Justice Department.

“Until we receive benefit of either a suit or a detailed analysis of wrongdoing, backing up a criminal investigation,” Ted Goldstein said, “it would be hypothetical at this point as to whether we could or would defend them.”