Trial Begins for Motorist Accused of Copter Deaths

Vincent William Acosta realized the hazard he was creating when he sped away from police one night in 1987 and must now be blamed for the deaths of three men whose police helicopter crashed while in hot pursuit, a prosecutor urged a jury Tuesday.

Acosta “knew it was dangerous to the bone to be driving the way he did,” but ignored the risks in leading police on a 45-minute chase that led to the in-flight collision of two helicopters, one of which crashed, Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas James Borris told jurors in Superior Court in Santa Ana.

The prosecutor’s claims came at the beginning of Acosta’s murder trial Tuesday, more than 2 years after the collision. The 22-year-old Anaheim man now stands accused of three counts of second-degree murder and, if convicted, faces 45 years to life in prison.

Driving a stolen car the night of March 10, 1987, Acosta led police on a heated chase that reached reported ground speeds of 90 m.p.h. About 12 minutes into the chase, two pursuing helicopters collided above Irvine. Two Costa Mesa police officers and a civilian observer accompanying them were killed when their helicopter then crashed.

State courts have generally found that a driver can be held criminally responsible--and convicted of murder--for deaths of pursuing police officers, other motorists or pedestrians that result from the driver’s recklessness, attorneys in the Acosta case say.

But the Acosta trial is the first known case in the state, perhaps the nation, involving a helicopter collision.

In the view of prosecutor Borris, the legal principle of responsibility remains the same, whether the tragedy occurs on land or in the air.

“Had he pulled over when he heard the sirens and saw the red lights (at the outset of pursuit), no one would have died that night,” Borris said.

It was Acosta’s complete disregard of the readily apparent risk, he said, that “started the chain of events.”

But Deputy Public Defender William Kelley will try to show during the trial, which is expected to last several weeks, that Acosta cannot be held accountable for an event as unforeseeable as a collision in the air.

“The appreciation of the risk is totally different when you’re talking about a helicopter accident,” Kelley said.

“When you’re traveling at a high speed on the ground, clearly there’s a high risk for you, for people in the streets, for parked cars. But there’s just no way you could predict that risk with a helicopter.”

Kelley, who will try to show that pilot error was to blame in the accident, told jurors that one helicopter was flying with two experienced pilots with the Costa Mesa Police Department who “presumably knew what they were doing.”

Nonetheless, he said, the aircraft failed to maintain radio or visual contact soon after it gave up the lead in the pursuit to a Newport Beach Police Department helicopter near the UC Irvine campus.

The Costa Mesa helicopter, last seen flying in the opposite direction from the chase after yielding the lead, apparently then reversed direction within about 40 seconds and hit the Newport Beach helicopter from behind.

The Costa Mesa helicopter crashed to the ground in a fiery wreck, killing Officers James D. Ketchum, 39, and John W. Libolt, 39, as well as civilian flight instructor Jeffrey A. Pollard, 27, of Tustin.

“You’re left with no rational explanation as to why the (Costa Mesa helicopter) did what it did. . . . There is no way to explain it,” Kelley told jurors in the courtroom of Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald.

“It’s a tragedy--there’s no question about that,” he said. “But the question is: Is Mr. Acosta responsible for that?”

Borris said one of his primary weapons to show that Acosta is responsible for the crash is the defendant’s own words, as related to police shortly after his arrest. Fitzgerald ruled last week that jurors should be allowed to hear the taped statements as evidence.

“It’s rare we can say just what’s on someone’s mind at the time of a crime,” Borris said. “But his statement tells us that he clearly understood that what he was doing was dangerous, but he did it anyway--first, so he wouldn’t get busted, and second, to get home.”

Acosta appeared to be calm in court Tuesday and even seemed close to dozing off on several occasions as the attorneys gave opening statements and three witnesses took the stand.

But the defendant’s brother, Alfred Acosta of Anaheim, who attended the trial’s opening along with several other family members, said: “He’s real nervous. I know he’s scared, just hoping things will go his way.”