SAN FERNANDO VALLEY : Officer Testifies in Suit Over McDonald’s Killings
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In testimony lasting nearly three hours in federal court Wednesday, a Los Angeles police officer described in grim detail the shooting in which he and fellow officers fired 35 times at four robbers outside a Sunland McDonald’s, killing three and wounding the fourth.
Detective John Helms said he fired six times with a shotgun and three times with a pistol after seeing one of the bandits flee from the getaway car with a gun and a second man brandishing a gun inside the car. Afterward, police discovered that the weapons used during the Feb. 12, 1990, incident were pellet guns.
Helms’ testimony came in the trial of a civil rights lawsuit filed by the surviving robber and the families of the men killed.
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