Jury Clears Police in Suit on Teen’s Shooting Death

A federal court jury on Friday refused to find fault with the actions of four Los Angeles police officers who cornered a teen-age suspect in a North Hollywood attic two years ago and shot him to death when they said he repeatedly threatened them with a gun.

The jury, in reaching its verdict after two days of deliberations in Los Angeles, dismissed contentions by the parents of 16-year-old Bobby Jay Steele that the officers murdered their son out of vengeance because they believed he had killed rookie Officer James Beyea. The parents had pursued a $2-million wrongful-death suit against the four officers in U.S. District Court.

“We’ve been vindicated,” said Officer Salvador Apodaca. The officers hugged each other and shook hands after the jury verdict was announced.

But Sgt. Gary Nanson said the verdict did not completely erase the stigma from allegations that the four officers administered their own street justice in shooting the teen-ager four times--twice between the eyes, once just below his right eye.

“It’s something you’ll never get away from,” he said. “You’ll never feel free from it.”

Sgt. Mark Mooring agreed. “Our guts were churning,” he said. “We were a wreck. It absolutely tears your guts out.”

The youth’s parents declined to discuss their feelings about their son, whom they described as a normal child who loved baseball. The father, Robert Steele, said of his son: “I still don’t believe he shot that officer.”

The six members of the jury also declined to discuss in detail what led to their decision after the two-week civil trial against the four policemen, including Officer John Hall. “It wasn’t clear-cut,” said one juror. “It was a difficult case for us all,” said another.

The shooting occurred June 7, 1988, several hours after Beyea was shot to death by a burglar. Although police have maintained that Steele shot the officer, that assertion has never been proved conclusively.

Carol Watson and Timothy Midgley, attorneys for the parents, tried to convince the jury that it was unreasonable to believe the officers’ story that they each shot Steele during a two- to three-minute period, when they each entered the dark attic armed with a gun and flashlight.

Watson contended that Beyea’s gun, which was found next to Steele’s body, was planted by the officers after they shot the teen-ager. She noted that the weapon did not carry Steele’s fingerprints.

She also described the officers’ shooting skills as “phenomenal,” given the circumstances of the dark attic and the danger they faced in climbing up there on a wooden ladder.

“We’re not saying all police officers are bad people and will kill on sight,” she said. “But we are saying these officers were in a situation where there were no witnesses around and they took advantage of that situation.

“These four officers went into that attic that night and killed Bobby Steele.”

But Philip Sugar, the assistant city attorney who defended the officers, told the jury that the officers placed their own lives in danger when they climbed into the attic. He said the suspect they were seeking had already killed one police officer, and that the four officers shot Steele only after each first saw him reach for the gun.

“They’re not machines,” he said of the officers, refuting Watson’s contention that Steele’s death was a cold-blooded execution. “They’re not automatons.”

He denied that Beyea’s gun was planted on Steele’s body, and said the weapon had a particular grip that would not hold fingerprints.

And he referred to testimony from a surgeon who said that even after several shots to the head, a human being can continue to live and move--a theory he said was consistent with the officers’ recollections that Steele repeatedly tried to grab the gun and shoot them.

“Some of the movements may have been jerking, spasmodic movements,” he said. “The body would still twitch, mimicking motion.”

Sugar also suggested that Steele’s parents, who gave the boy over to grandparents to be raised, brought the lawsuit as a way to assuage their own guilt over their failings at parenthood. He noted that Steele, as he grew older, was having problems with the law and had joined a North Hollywood gang.

“What we have here is an absentee mother and an absentee father who feel a tremendous overriding sense of guilt and responsibility for this tragedy,” he said. “I see two parents who have come to the realization that they weren’t great parents.”