Police Defend Embattled Officer’s Record : Shooting: Long Beach officials say an internal investigation of Alan B. Ice won’t include previous complaints against the policeman.

Long Beach police officials on Friday defended the record of embattled Officer Alan B. Ice, and said they have no plans to review his past on-the-job performance in the aftermath of last weekend’s shooting of a motorist by Ice.

Fountain Valley police, citing “discrepancies” in Ice’s account of the shooting, have asked Orange County prosecutors to bring criminal charges against the officer.

Allegations of brutality against Ice were raised in 1981 when a study by the Long Beach Press-Telegram found that he was singled out for more citizens’ complaints--15 were filed against him--than any other officer in the Long Beach department.

Long Beach Cmdr. Ray Jordan said Friday of the allegations: “We’re going back 11 years on that, and everything was said and done at that time. . . . That’s water under the bridge.”

Jordan said that while Long Beach police are conducting an internal review into the Fountain Valley shooting last Saturday, investigators do not intend to look at past allegations against Ice.

“Obviously he’s worked here for a long time, and in doing so he’s been a good officer to this point or he wouldn’t have lasted this long,” Jordan said.

But a history of citizens’ complaints could help Neil Cramer--the victim in the Fountain Valley shooting--in the potentially tough task of holding the Long Beach Police Department liable for Ice’s off-duty actions, several legal specialists in the field said.

Cramer’s lawyer, Dennis Minna, said his client plans to sue both Ice and the Long Beach Police Department over the shooting, which has left Cramer hospitalized in stable condition with a bullet lodged in his chest.

Ice and Cramer apparently got into an argument and traded barbs on Ward Street in Fountain Valley after Cramer says he swerved to avoid a fallen bicyclist. Cramer, a 36-year-old carpenter, was then shot through the shoulder, but Ice says his gun went off accidentally.

“If they get to a jury, I think it will be a very strong case” against both the city of Long Beach and Ice, said Long Beach attorney Ronald Beck.

Beck represented Long Beach resident Thomas Acosta 15 years ago in his claim that Ice and two other officers struck him in the head and slammed him down on the hood of his car as the police were breaking up a loud party in his neighborhood.

“This one was a clear case of brutality as far as I was concerned,” Beck said of the Acosta case. “I had, to the city’s surprise, found an eyewitness on a second-floor balcony who saw these officers do these things to my client--this nice, sweet lady who heard this ruckus in the middle of the night and saw these guys beat up my guy.”

The city never acknowledged the claims, but agreed to settle for $9,500 in 1982, said Robert Shannon, an assistant Long Beach city attorney.

According to the Press-Telegram study in 1981, Ice was the target of 15 misconduct complaints filed against the Police Department--including eight stemming from a single incident--between 1975 and 1980. That was the most of any officer on the force.

But the Acosta case was the only one against Ice to result in a financial award, the newspaper said. And no lawsuits have been filed against him since 1980.

Shannon said he is not worried about a lawsuit by Cramer.

“I have no problem saying categorically that the city has no (liability) exposure here,” Shannon said. “(Ice) was not taking a police action. This was a personal dispute, however you view the facts.”

As for the claim by Cramer’s attorney that the complaints against Ice signaled a problem, Shannon noted that he knows of no jury that ever found the officer guilty of brutality.

And, he asked: “Should we have fired him? What would be the basis--because somebody made a claim against him? We’d be denying him due process.”