Victim’s Family Blasts Sheriff’s Probe of Killing

Thirty-five friends and relatives of a black Hawthorne man who was slain by a sheriff’s deputy after being mistaken for a Latino robbery suspect demonstrated outside the Lennox sheriff’s station on Saturday, saying the sheriff’s own investigations have failed to deliver justice.

The emotional, homemade protest--including the victim’s mother, sister and his 11-year-old and 10-year-old daughters--featured allegations of racism and demands that a murder charge be filed.

“Daddy, I’m Fighting for You,” read 10-year-old Temika Donel’s sign.

“I know they’re not going to do nothing to him,” said Sandra Curd, the victim’s mother. “To them it’s just another black man dead.”

Marcus Donel, 30, was killed in the driveway of his Hawthorne apartment May 30 after arguing with sheriff’s deputies who had followed him because he matched the description of a robbery suspect broadcast minutes earlier.

Description Inaccurate

It was later determined, however, that the broadcast was in error; the suspect was Latino, not black. An earlier broadcast had provided the correct description.

Ordered to lie down, Donel argued with deputies, using profanity, sheriff’s officials said. He was on his hands and knees when, according to deputies, his arm suddenly moved as if reaching for a gun. Deputy Patrick Maxwell fired a single, fatal shot. Donel, who worked as a courier for a law firm, was later found to be unarmed.

Three days after the shooting, Maxwell was cleared of wrongdoing by sheriff’s homicide detectives who concluded the deputy believed his life was in danger. He is back on patrol.

The Sheriff’s Department has declined to discuss details of a second investigation concerning the mix-up of the suspect’s description. That investigation, handled within the Lennox station, is not complete, Lt. Charles Schultz said Saturday.

David Lynn, coordinator for the the Police Misconduct Lawyer Referral Service, said the Donel slaying fits a pattern of increasing complaints of harassment of blacks by white deputies. The Lennox Sheriff’s Station, Lynn said, has one of the worst records.

The shooting illustrates the need for a citizens-based police review board, Lynn said, adding: “It’s obvious that police officers are not disciplining themselves.”

To those charges, Schultz responded: “In our training and in our philosophy we do not practice any form of racism. And if we were ever to find any indication of that, we would take appropriate action to correct that situation.”

Lynn and activist Geri Silvia of the Equal Rights Congress attended the protest Saturday. Don Jackson of Law Enforcement Officers for Justice, the former Hawthorne police officer who attracted nationwide attention because of videotapes showing a Long Beach policeman apparently shoving him through a plate-glass window, also came to lend support. The protest, scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., was delayed by the late arrival of Donel’s family. Jackson departed moments before the demonstration began.