RIOT AFTERMATH : The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time : Shooting: An innocent bystander is killed while watching a shootout between neighbors and police. Family demands a full investigation.

The family of a young Altadena man killed by one of an estimated 70 shots fired by Pasadena police breaking up a weekend party has described the death as “uncalled for” and has demanded that the responsible officer be prosecuted.

Howard Eugene Martin, 22, was shot once in the head the night of May 2 as he stood on a second-story apartment balcony on North Los Robles Avenue watching a shootout between police officers and late-night revelers, who had been asked to leave the neighborhood.

Police initially reported that Martin might have been caught in gang cross-fire. But an autopsy revealed that the fatal shot was fired by an officer, Police Chief Jerry Oliver said at a news conference Wednesday. In addition to Martin’s death, two police officers sustained minor wounds in the shooting, and the host of the party was shot in the leg.

Oliver said the bullet that killed Martin was probably aimed at a gunman standing below the balcony, and that it ricocheted off the street and struck the innocent bystander as he stood in a doorway.

Martin’s father, Wendell, said Thursday that he wonders whether police might have deliberately aimed at his son in the mistaken belief that he was firing at them.

“I want a full investigation, and I want to find out all the answers,” he said.

Oliver said Police Department policy states that officers may fire when fired upon, if they have a clear target. He said that a special board will review each shot fired by the officers during the incident to determine whether any criminal charges, disciplinary action or additional training is warranted.

About 25 officers responded to a disturbance involving about 150-200 young party-goers congregated at Los Robles Avenue and Claremont Street, Oliver said.

The officers were attempting to break up the crowd and clear the street when shots were fired at the officers from four different locations, including from near the apartment building where Martin was, the chief said.

Detectives said the assailants might have been either disgruntled party-goers angered at being chased away or gang members who happened to be passing by.

Ten officers fired at least 70 rounds during the ensuing shootout, Oliver said.

The chief said that he does not believe the incident had any direct link to the rioting and other violence that erupted in the Los Angeles area in the wake of the verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case. But he conceded that the tension in the air, and the “general atmosphere of lawlessness,” might have emboldened individuals to fire on the officers.

Oliver also said that many of the officers who responded to the party call were tired from working 12-hour shifts in Pasadena, which experienced some fires, looting and other violent acts.

Of the 10 officers who returned the fire, one fired 16 rounds, the chief said. However, he declined to identify the officer who fired the fatal shot.

Martin’s mother, Erma, 42, said Thursday that her son, an unemployed construction worker, saw the police barricades after visiting his fiancee and their 2-day-old daughter, and had taken refuge at a friend’s apartment when he was killed.

“He was minding his own business, having himself a cigarette,” she said. “This was more or less uncalled for.”

Sabrina Alexander, Martin’s fiancee, said she wants the officer responsible to be prosecuted for murder, and given the maximum prison sentence.

“If it would have been a gang member who would have killed him, he would get life,” she said. “What’s going to happen to this officer? Now my child, and Howard’s two other children (by other women), are going to have to grow up without a daddy.”