Shooting Not on Tape, Witness Says : Melee: The footage only shows a tense confrontation after a deputy shot a man at an East L.A. housing project, cameraman says.

A man who videotaped a confrontation Saturday between sheriff’s deputies and an angry crowd at the Ramona Gardens housing project in East Los Angeles said he doubts his confiscated tape will resolve whether deputies were justified in shooting a resident during a scuffle.

Miguel Salas, 23, said he began taping the confrontation just after he heard several shots fired and the screams of his neighbors as they clustered around the fallen figure of Arturo Jimenez, described by authorities as a 19-year-old gang member, who was attending a birthday party at the project.

“We didn’t get the shooting,” Salas said Sunday. “It’s not a Rodney King thing,” he said, referring to the videotape that showed the beating by Los Angeles police of an Altadena resident that sparked a national furor.

Salas said the tape, shot from a distance of about 20 feet, shows only a tense confrontation between deputies and residents after the shooting and the arrest of several people as officers struggled to regain control of the area.

“They were dragging people into their cars. It wasn’t exactly humane, but they weren’t beating on anybody,” Salas said. “I don’t think the tape shows anything really bad.”

A Sheriff’s Department spokesman said the video will probably be copied and released to the public today.

Salas was still angry that officers had confiscated the tape. He said several officers chased his brother, who was then holding the video camera, through the neighborhood to get the videotape.

A Sheriff’s Department spokesman said Saturday that officers were justified in confiscating the tape because it is evidence in a crime.

Salas said: “I think the cops were afraid. I think they thought we had the shooting on tape.”

The incident at Ramona Gardens, which involved about 300 residents and 75 deputies and police officers, began at 1:35 a.m. Saturday when a sheriff’s patrol car entered the project in pursuit of a vehicle they said was speeding.

The patrol car stopped in front of a group of people who were celebrating resident Diane Reyes’ 39th birthday with a barbecue.

Authorities said the deputies looked over the group and were driving away when their vehicle was struck by a bottle.

The two deputies, identified Sunday as Jason Mann, 28, and Dana Ellison, 35, left their vehicle to investigate.

Deputies and some residents tell differing stories about what happened next.

The Sheriff’s Department said Jimenez assaulted Ellison with a beer bottle and took his flashlight. The department claims that Jimenez swung the flashlight and knocked Ellison unconscious.

Mann ordered Jimenez to drop the flashlight and then shot him three times in the chest, the department said.

Christina Vargas, 18, who was at the birthday party with Jimenez, said it was the deputies who started the confrontation by striking one man in the group.

She said Jimenez, who was known as Smokey in the neighborhood, began yelling at the officers for punching his friend, but she said he did nothing threatening. She said she was standing next to Jimenez when Mann opened fire.

“Smokey didn’t do anything for him to shoot him,” Vargas said. “He was with me the whole time.”

A day after the shooting, neighbors throughout the Ramona Gardens project were still angry and saddened by the shooting.

Reyes said she was infuriated at the time it took for an ambulance to arrive, even though County-USC Medical Center is less than three-quarters of a mile away.

“We were all saying, call someone, help him,” Reyes said. “I tried to take him myself and they (the deputies) wouldn’t let me.”

Reyes estimated it was at least half an hour before an ambulance arrived. Salas agreed that the ambulance did not arrive during the approximately 20 minutes that he and his brother videotaped the incident.

“All the people wanted was for someone to make sure there was help for this boy,” Reyes said. “An ambulance can make it here in two or three minutes. That’s what makes this all so senseless.”

Fire Department officials said they would not be able to determine when the ambulance arrived until they could check records today.

On Saturday and Sunday, Jimenez’s friends organized a carwash to raise money for his funeral. Someone left a small cross and flowers in the grass where he was shot.

Vargas, who was Jimenez’s girlfriend, walked through the rows of dark-blue, two-story buildings that make up the housing complex, collecting $2 or $5 donations to give to Jimenez’s family.

Vargas said word spread Sunday through Ramona Gardens that a meeting with the Sheriff’s Department and Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre will take place tonight.

She was unsure what good could come out of the meeting. “They’re all dogs,” Vargas said of the police and deputies.

She added: “Everybody’s mad. We all miss Smokey. We’re all hurting.”

Also contributing to this story was Times staff writer Penelope McMillan.