FBI Will Investigate Killing by Deputy : Shooting: Attorney for slain woman’s family asked for independent review. The Sheriff’s Department also is looking into the case.

The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday that it has directed the FBI to investigate the fatal shooting two months ago of an innocent bystander by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy.

Amy Casner, a Washington-based department spokeswoman, said the FBI was ordered last week to investigate the May 15 death of Gianna Marie Blue inside E&W; Liquor store in South Los Angeles.

Casner would not say why the department decided to look into the matter or comment further on the case.

“All I can tell you is the date the direction was given,” she said.

Fred Reagan, a local FBI spokesman, said the work has not begun because the necessary paper work has yet to arrive from Washington. He said the results of the investigation, once it is complete, will be turned over to Justice Department lawyers.

Geraldine Green, a lawyer for Blue’s family, said earlier this week that she asked federal authorities in a June 26 letter for the independent review of the shooting. She said she suspects the Sheriff’s Department, which is conducting its own investigation, and the county coroner’s office of attempting a cover-up.

The district attorney’s office is also investigating the case.

In her letter, Green accused Deputies Thomas Drake and Shannon Laren of firing into the building without warning and without identifying themselves, a violation, she contends, of the rights of everyone inside.

Blue, a mother of four who had turned 30 that day, was buying items for her birthday party when Drake and Laren, standing outside the store at Central Avenue and Century Boulevard, fired a barrage of bullets inside. Their intended target, the deputies said, was Hernandez Vincson, 24, who they said had run into the market and pointed a gun at them. Vincson was wounded in the shooting.

Sheriff’s officials initially said Vincson may have shot Blue. Ballistics tests, however, showed the fatal bullet came from a deputy’s gun.

Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Christiansen said the two deputies fired a total of 13 shots, a matter that is disputed by Green. The lawyer put the count as high as 30.

Green also disputes the Sheriff’s Department and the coroner’s office on other matters. She contends that Vincson, who survived, was shot as many as 12 times and Blue as many as four.

Christiansen said Vincson was shot six times. Both he and the coroner’s office say Blue was hit once.

Green also contends that Vincson never pointed a gun at the deputies.