2 Ex-Police Officers Are Focus of Inquiry : Law enforcement: The district attorney’s office is looking into allegations by a fellow officer that a suspect was beaten.

Two former Baldwin Park police officers, accused by a fellow officer of using excessive force in the beating of an unarmed burglar, are under criminal investigation by the district attorney’s office.

According to a copy of a search warrant filed by a district attorney’s investigator, Baldwin Park Police Officer Steven Julian witnessed the alleged beating of Gilbert Gutierrez by fellow officers Louis Price and Kenneth Shearen in February.

Gutierrez, 35, suffered head wounds that required 17 staples and several stitches to close. He is in a state correctional facility in Delano after being convicted of the burglary.

According to the search warrant, Julian was troubled by what he saw that night, and an alleged attempt by the two officers to cover up the incident. He decided to come forward six weeks later--after a period in which the March 3 videotaped beating of Altadena motorist Rodney King sparked nationwide outrage over police brutality.

Baldwin Park Police internal investigators later concluded that the two officers used unnecessary force, according to a memo written by the police chief and included in the records of a claim Gutierrez filed against the city.

Price, 27, who at the time of the incident was a month away from completing the department’s 18-month probationary period for new employees, resigned in May.

Shearen, 37, a Baldwin Park officer for more than two years, was fired in June. He is appealing his termination.

Police Chief Carmine Lanza declined to comment directly on the investigation. But he said it is the first time employees of the 60-officer department have been investigated by the district attorney’s special investigations division, which looks into police misconduct.

“I think it’s a rare occurrence when (Baldwin Park) officers are accused,” Lanza said. “It’s almost nonexistent.”

Yet, in April, the city agreed to a $495,000 settlement of a 4 1/2-year-old police misconduct lawsuit brought by 11 Baldwin Park residents against eight officers. In addition, two other police misconduct lawsuits are pending, one of them against Price.

The most recent allegations might never have been investigated had Julian not come forward, according to information contained in the search warrant. It was obtained last month for searches of the homes of Price and Shearen, as well as the Police Department headquarters. Officials said in the warrant that they hoped to recover police flashlights, batons and documents related to the Gutierrez case.

Julian and Gutierrez gave investigators similar accounts of what happened the night of Feb. 11.

According to the warrant, police were called to the 3600 block of Baldwin Park Boulevard at 11:49 p.m. to search the garage and back yard of a home for two burglars who had broken into a gas station mini-mart next door and stolen a few cases of beer, cartons of cigarettes and a roll of nickels.

One suspect, Gonzalo Yanez, 37, who was convicted and is serving a term in state prison in Chino, was arrested quickly.

But Gutierrez eluded police for about 20 minutes by hiding in bushes.

According to the warrant, Julian told a district attorney’s investigator he had given up the search and was standing in the front yard next door to the gas station with Sgt. Robert Curtis when he heard a thud. The officer said he turned and saw Price and Shearen raising their flashlights and batons overhead and using them to strike the passive Gutierrez, who was lying on the ground.

The document said Gutierrez told the investigator that once the officers discovered him, he remained motionless believing “it was over and he was caught.” But he said the officers said nothing to him, and he was attacked without warning.

By the time Curtis ordered the officers to stop, Gutierrez’ face, head, hair and shirt were dripping with blood. One officer had to wipe blood from his flashlight with his hand, the warrant said.

In their police report, Price and Shearen wrote that Gutierrez injured himself by falling off a garage roof onto a pile of scrap metal. The officers later alleged Curtis told them to file the phony report.

Price and Shearen are being investigated by the district attorney’s office for assault with a deadly weapon, assault under color of authority and filing a false police report.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Oscodar, who is reviewing the case, declined comment, saying only that the investigation is continuing.

Lanza would not confirm whether Curtis, who is still on the force, was disciplined as a result of the incident.

Julian is on sick leave, according to those answering calls for him at the police station.

All of the officers either declined comment or could not be reached.

Law enforcement officials familiar with Shearen’s police work said the allegations against him seem uncharacteristic of the mild-mannered officer, who spent more than three years as a reserve officer with the Montebello Police Department before putting himself through the police academy at Rio Hondo College and getting a job in Baldwin Park on May 7, 1989.

Sgt. Frank Gonzalez, co-coordinator of the Montebello police reserves, said Shearen was recognized in 1988 for firearms expertise and for working the most volunteer hours, 686 in a year’s time. Gonzalez called Shearen “enthusiastic about his job and very professional.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Falls said Shearen risked his life last October pursuing gang members fleeing in a car at speeds up to 85 m.p.h. as they shot back at the officer, striking his patrol car three times.

Price is named in a lawsuit filed in June in Pomona Superior Court alleging that he and another officer used police batons to beat Efren Ramirez, 30, on May 10, 1990, after neighbors complained about loud music coming from a truck parked in front of Ramirez’s Baldwin Park home.

In the suit, Ramirez’ attorney, Ed Fox, alleges that the Police Department encourages officers to make arrests without probable cause and to use excessive force. The department then ratifies such misconduct by failing to conduct adequate investigations, the lawyer claims.

Similar claims were made in two other lawsuits against the department filed by West Covina attorney Jack Alex.

In 1987, eight officers were sued by 11 members and friends of the Ricardo Moran family after the officers allegedly ran amok when they broke up a late-night Halloween party at the Moran home in 1986. The officers were accused of beating party-goers with batons, commanding a police dog to attack them, spraying Mace and destroying property.

The family members were charged with a variety of criminal offenses, some of which were later dropped by the district attorney. They were acquitted of the rest of the charges in a jury trial.

The city settled the lawsuit in April for $495,000.

Meanwhile, another lawsuit is pending against six officers accused of beating George Gonzalez, 58, of La Puente, who was later treated for a broken arm and head injuries. Officers allegedly struck Gonzalez with flashlights and billy clubs at the Woodchuck Bar on Feb. 25, 1987, after Gonzalez’ wife called police and reported that he assaulted her during an argument.

Despite the lawsuits and the allegations in them, Lanza denied the department has an ongoing problem of excessive force by its officers. The chief praised the professionalism of his employees in policing what he called “an active community with regard to crimes.”

Baldwin Park contains two of the most notorious and active gangs in the San Gabriel Valley, said Falls, who has worked gang crimes for the district attorney’s office for the past two years. Some officers liken the San Gabriel Valley city of 69,330 residents to drug and gang-plagued Compton in Southeast Los Angeles County.

Yet, Baldwin Park’s police officer-to-citizen ratio--one to 1,155--was, until last month, the worst in Los Angeles County.

The City Council on Aug. 7 approved 10 new police officer jobs, but they have not been filled yet. Five new officers were hired by the chief last week, but they will fill already existing vacancies.

The city needs to hire a total of 31 officers by 1995 to bring the officer-to-citizen ratio in line with comparable surrounding communities, according to a city police staffing study released last month.

Meanwhile, the city’s crime rate soared last year by 22%, with 3,778 serious crimes reported in 1990. Gang-related crimes increased by 24%, with 219 such incidents reported.

Although Lanza estimated that crime rates in most Los Angeles County cities increased an average of about 12% last year, Baldwin Park’s statistical increase could be attrisf rimwork and more arrests, he said. He pointed out that the city’s crime rate increased by only one-tenth of 1% the year before.