6 SIS Detectives Cleared in Shooting of Bank Robbers

In an important legal victory for the Los Angeles Police Department, a federal court jury Thursday cleared six undercover detectives of allegations that they violated a bank robber’s civil rights when they shot her and killed her companion after watching the two rob a bank in 1982.

The jury deliberated for 2 hours and 45 minutes before finding that the four detectives who shot Jane Berry had not used excessive force. The verdict meant an automatic dismissal of the case against the two remaining detectives, both since retired, who did not participate in the shooting, but supervised the operation.

All the detectives are members and former members of the LAPD’s Special Investigations Section, an elite surveillance squad that gathers evidence against dangerous criminals by watching them commit crimes and attempts to arrest them afterward. The unit, which has killed more than 25 suspects and wounded at least 24 others since its inception in 1967, is so clandestine that few knew of its existence until a 1988 investigative article by The Times.

Berry’s $10-million civil case marked the first time members of the unit--which her lawyers have repeatedly referred to as “a death squad”--have been brought to trial as a group. Had she prevailed, Berry would have been able to continue her case with a second, wider-ranging phase that named Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, Mayor Tom Bradley and other city officials and alleged that the very policy that permits the SIS to exist is a violation of civil rights.

In addition, a verdict in favor of Berry could have cleared the way for others to file similar suits.

Berry’s lawyers, Stephen and Marion Yagman, have already filed suit on behalf of the families of three men who were shot to death by SIS officers after a robbery at a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland last February.

“We’ll get the death squad in the next case,” Marion Yagman said after Thursday’s verdict.

But Assistant City Atty. Victoria Chaney, who represented the officers, said she believed the verdict Thursday “would be a signal to other people that they ought to think carefully about filing a lawsuit against police officers who place their lives on the line every day in dealing with dangerous criminals.”

The officers, who have never been charged with any crime in the shootings, were clearly relieved and elated at the outcome of the civil trial. After the verdicts were announced at 7 p.m., they hugged one another and shook hands. Some even broke the silence they had maintained throughout the two-week trial.

“I was worried if the verdict was different that maybe, in the future, it would affect how I work,” said Detective Jerry Brooks, his wife at his side. “That maybe I would end up taking a second longer and I would end up dead.”

Detective Michael Sirk, meanwhile, said he felt the squad had been vindicated, although he added he was never worried about its continued existence.

“I don’t think Chief Gates will get rid of the SIS, no matter what lawsuits come up,” Sirk said. “He has reassured us that we have his backing . . . that our jobs are secure no matter which way any decisions go.”

In addition to the support of their chief, the six SIS detectives--Brooks and Sirk, Rodger Niles, Henry Cadena and retired officers Dale Ostrom and Roger Marine--had plenty of support from their fellow squad members and other police officers, who packed the courtroom during closing arguments Thursday. According to Chaney, every member of the 19-man SIS unit listened in on some portion of the case.

Trial testimony showed that the SIS shadowed Berry and her companion, John Crumpton, for 17 days before watching them rob a Security Pacific Bank in Burbank on Sept. 15, 1982.

Berry’s lawyers maintained that police had ample opportunity to arrest Berry and Crumpton before the robbery on lesser charges and had, in effect, created a situation that was bound to end in gunfire.

Pointing to physical evidence that showed Berry and Crumpton each sustained numerous shotgun pellet wounds--all to the back--Stephen Yagman told the jury in his closing argument that the officers “ambushed” the two. “They wanted to put them out of business forever,” Yagman said.

The officers, however, maintained that they acted in self-defense, saying they saw Berry reach for her gun and thought--albeit mistakenly--that Crumpton was also armed.

Jurors said afterward that they sided with the officers because Berry’s testimony lacked credibility and because the judge had instructed them to determine only whether the officers used excessive force.

“There’s only one point of the case, and that was the final seconds,” said one juror who asked not to be named. “That’s what the judge told us. That’s what we went by.”