Police Surveillance Unit Kills 3 Robbery Suspects

Three robbers were killed and a fourth was wounded early Monday by gunfire from nine members of a controversial Los Angeles police squad who watched as the suspects forced their way into a closed McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland and robbed its manager at gunpoint, authorities said.

Thirty-five shots were fired at the four robbers after they climbed into a getaway car and one allegedly pointed a gun at the officers, police said.

None of the officers, wearing jackets marked “LAPD” and driving unmarked cars, was hurt during the 2 a.m. confrontation in front of the deserted Foothill Boulevard fast-food restaurant. The manager was found tied up but unharmed inside the restaurant.

Police said the officers are members of the department’s Special Investigations Section, a secretive unit that conducts surveillance of people suspected of committing a series of crimes. The officers did not move in as they watched the robbery take place because they feared for the safety of the restaurant manager, 24-year-old Robin Cox, police said.

Police said the suspects were believed to have been involved in a string of as many as nine other robberies of fast-food restaurants throughout Los Angeles, including five area McDonald’s restaurants. Three pellet guns that appeared to be authentic firearms were found in the getaway car and on one of the suspects after the shooting, police said. Police said it did not appear that any of the pellet guns had been fired.

The police shooting is being investigated by the department’s officer-involved shooting unit. Lt. William Hall, head of the unit, said the officers did not violate a year-old department policy that says officers should protect potential crime victims even if it jeopardizes an undercover investigation.

The policy was instituted after police officials reviewed the procedures of the SIS. A Times investigation in 1988 found that the 19-member unit often followed violent criminals but did not take advantage of opportunities to arrest them until after robberies or burglaries occurred--in many cases leaving victims terrorized or injured.

Police said the officers involved in Monday’s shooting are SIS veterans with an average of 19 years of experience with the Los Angeles Police Deparment. The officers were identified as Richard Spelman, 39; James Tippings, 48; Gary Strickland, 46; Jerry Brooks, 50; John Helms, 40; Joe Callian, 31; Warren Eggar, 48; Richard Zierenberg, 43, and David Harrison, 41.

Brooks, Strickland and Harrison were named in the Times investigation as being among 24 officers involved in three or more shootings between 1978 and 1987. Brooks had shot seven suspects during that period while Strickland and Harrison had each shot three suspects.

Hall said Monday’s shooting appeared to conform to department policies. The investigation, when complete, will be reviewed by the Police Commission and the district attorney’s office. “I don’t think that in this case that there is really any reason for a lot of criticism to come up,” he said.

The police gunfire early Monday echoed throughout the commercial and residential area where apartment buildings sit alongside restaurants, convenience stores and small service shops.

“I woke up hearing many, many shots,” said Alejandro Medina, whose corner apartment overlooks the four-lane boulevard and the McDonald’s. “I got up to see and then there were more shots. I hit the floor.”

Police closed a seven-block stretch of Foothill Boulevard for eight hours early Monday while the investigation of the shooting was under way. The suspects’ car, a late-model bronze Thunderbird--its body riddled by bullets and its windows shattered--was towed from the street at 10 a.m. and firefighters were called to wash away the blood and debris.

The McDonald’s reopened just after noon for its normal lunch crowd, said Sheryl Harrison, a Southern California spokeswoman for the fast-food chain. Harrison declined to comment on the shooting. “As far as McDonald’s is concerned, this is really a police matter,” she said.

Although SIS officers had watched at least one of the suspects off and on since the beginning of the year, Hall said the suspects were not seen breaking any laws before they forced their way into the McDonald’s at 7950 Foothill Boulevard.

“At the times the surveillance has been on the suspects, (police) saw no crimes,” Hall said. “To stop them they needed a reason. That had not occurred. Once (the suspects) went up to the restaurant, maybe they crossed that threshold.”

The men entered the restaurant before the officers could manage an arrest, Hall said. The officers then decided they did not want to endanger Cox by attempting to burst into the McDonald’s.

The names of the three dead men were not released Monday. The wounded man was identified as Alfredo Olivas, 19, of Hollywood. He was in serious condition, suffering from two gunshot wounds, at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills.

Police said that when he recovers, Olivas will be arrested on a murder charge because, under California law, he can be held responsible for any deaths that occur during a crime he allegedly committed.

Police began the investigation that led to the shooting after the robbery of a McDonald’s in downtown Los Angeles in September, Hall said. Because detectives and McDonald’s security officials believed the robbers had knowledge of how the restaurant operated, several employees were questioned and given lie-detector tests.

One employee was fired after failing the polygraph examination but there was no evidence to arrest him, police said. The downtown robbery was similar to at least six others--five at McDonald’s restaurants and one at a Carl’s Jr.--in Los Angeles since August, police said. In each case, the robbers had knowledge of the business’s operations and forced a lone manager at gunpoint to open a safe after hours, police said.

SIS officers began to follow the former employee in early January and, on Sunday night, the officers watched as he met with three other men in Venice and drove with them to Sunland in his Thunderbird, police said.

The four men arrived at the McDonald’s as it was closing at midnight, parked across the street and watched as employees left, police said. At 1:36 a.m., when only Cox was inside, three of the suspects walked up to the restaurant and one remained in the car.

Hall said two of the men attempted to break in a rear door. Cox heard the commotion and called police. Patrol units did not go to the restaurant, however, because they were aware that SIS officers were already standing by.

As the officers watched, two of the suspects managed to force their way into the McDonald’s through a side door and the other two quickly followed. Cox was tied up and threatened at gunpoint until she agreed to open the restaurant’s safe. Police said several thousand dollars was taken.

After the suspects left the restaurant and got into the Thunderbird, four unmarked cars containing eight officers pulled up from behind and one officer ran up on foot.

“It happened pretty quickly,” Hall said. “There was no opportunity for any of the officers to come forward and say I’m a police officer. All of them were identified by wearing their LAPD raid jackets.

“When they approached the vehicle, they saw one of the suspects with a handgun point it toward their direction. One of the officers said, ‘Watch out, they’ve got a gun.’ At that time we had several officers fire into the vehicle. The passenger in the front exited and fled into an open field. He was carrying a handgun and several officers fired at him. All the shots were fired in just a few seconds.”

Hall said that after the firing stopped, two officers approached the car and fired four more shots into it when they saw “two of the suspects were reaching down to a floor board where a gun was.”

A total of 23 shotgun blasts and 12 shots from .45-caliber handguns were fired by police at the suspected robbers, Hall said.

Times staff writer Phil Sneiderman contributed to this story.