LOS ANGELES : Ruling Favoring Elite LAPD Unit Is Upheld

An appeals court has upheld a ruling in favor of an elite Los Angeles police unit, which had been accused of violating the rights of a bank robber whom the unit’s members had shot and wounded, the city attorney’s office announced Monday.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a federal judge was correct to exclude evidence of previous shootings by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Investigations Section in the trial of the bank robber’s lawsuit.

Lawyers for Jane Berry, who survived the 1982 shooting, could not be reached for comment.

A jury found in 1990 that members of the unit did not use excessive force against Berry, whose boyfriend, John Crumpton III, was killed in the holdup. Berry’s lawyers had appealed U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson’s decision that prevented them from presenting evidence of previous SIS-involved shootings.