D.A. Wants Murder Case Dropped but Defense Objects

Los Angeles County prosecutors on Friday unexpectedly requested the dismissal of murder charges against the lone survivor of a police shoot-out that left three robbers dead outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland last February.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth L. Barshop asked a San Fernando Municipal Court judge to dismiss the charges because prosecutors are uncertain they could prove that the defendant, Alfredo Olivas, provoked the shooting. Such a finding is necessary to convict Olivas of murder in the deaths of his accomplices, who perished in a hail of police gunfire after robbing the restaurant.

Barshop would not specify what led him to believe Olivas may not have provoked the shooting, saying the information came from sealed police documents.

Moments after Barshop’s motion, Olivas’ attorney, Deputy Public Defender Howard C. Waco, surprised the courtroom by objecting to the request.

Waco declined to say why he wants prosecutors to proceed with the charges, which could result in his client’s being sentenced to death if convicted. But he indicated that continuing the murder case will entitle him to information about police tactics in the shooting that would otherwise be unavailable.

A hearing on Waco’s objection was scheduled for Tuesday. Judge Stephen A. Marcus, who has presided over the case, said he intends to dismiss the charges unless Waco can show on the basis of previous court rulings that his objection is valid.

Dismissal of the charges would spare the Police Department potentially embarrassing exposure of its officers’ conduct during the shooting, Waco said later.

The nine officers involved in the shooting are members of the department’s Special Investigations Section, which has been criticized for following violent criminals but not arresting them until after robberies or burglaries occurred. .

Barshop denied that public exposure of the department’s tactics was a factor in the decision to drop the charges.

Barshop said that even if the murder counts are dismissed, Olivas, who is 19, could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted of the 19 assault, robbery and kidnaping counts still pending.

Those charges stem from a string of at least nine similar robberies of fast-food restaurants that Olivas and his three companions allegedly committed in the Los Angeles area. It was in connection with those robberies that the Special Investigations Section was monitoring the group before the shoot-out early on Feb. 12.

The shooting resulted in the deaths of Herbert Burgos, 27, and Jesus Arango, 25, both of Venice, and Javier Trevino Cruz, 20, of Hollywood. Olivas was shot twice but recovered.

The men were shot as they sat in their getaway car after robbing the Foothill Boulevard restaurant.