Riots’ Felony Cases Challenge Prosecutors

Dana Cook was caught outside the looted dry cleaners on Manchester at 6 a.m., holding what the prosecutor calls “somebody else’s clothes,” still on the hangers. A dead-bang case. Cook, 29, pleads guilty and accepts the D.A.’s plea bargain--one year in jail.

Alfredo Cortez also was arrested near a looted business on Manchester Boulevard, just hours before--3:15 a.m. on May 1. But his case isn’t so easy. In fact, it has his defense attorney drooling.

Although the arresting officer said three witnesses saw the 20-year-old Cortez carrying cigarettes from the smashed-in liquor store, its burglar alarm still wailing, police never got their names.

Deputy Public Defender Thomas Ahearn was ready to argue that they are “phantom witnesses” cooked up by the cops. Even if they were to materialize in court, he said, he would lambaste the reliability of “these decent, honest citizens . . . out there in violation of curfew themselves. What were they doing out there?”

But he didn’t have to discredit them. Word came down that prosecutors would drop the charges. “No I.D.” of the suspect, he was told.

So it went Wednesday in courtrooms around Los Angeles County, as preliminary hearings began in the 2,000-plus riot-related felony cases, providing the first testimony from police and other witnesses about who got arrested, and how.

The day generated countless reminders of the complications of prosecuting suspects caught in chaotic civil unrest. A second case was tossed out because police couldn’t prove that a shotgun two men were firing into the air at 3 a.m.--allegedly while drunk on looted beer--was among the merchandise looted from a Big 5 sporting goods store on Wilshire Boulevard.

Another case provided a surprise in a courthouse corridor when a scheduled prosecution witness remarked that while she did see two men run into her house to hide after nearby looting, she also saw an officer curse at the suspects and “kick them on the floor.” The prosecutor never called her as a witness, but defense attorneys pledged that they will use her if the case comes to trial.

“A lot of these riot cases are really fun cases for a defense lawyer,” said Ahearn. “There are legal issues all over the place. (Police) didn’t have much time for paperwork and legal niceties.

“Of course,” he added, “if they caught a looter inside the store, there’s going to be a problem”--for the defense.

And there were many cases like that, including one involving an apparent record haul for Los Angeles police in which a few carloads of officers corralled no fewer than 55 suspects cleaning out a supermarket.

“Sealed it off,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lynch.

The Los Angeles criminal justice system has been scrambling to keep up almost from the moment the first store windows were smashed, and fires were set, at dusk on Wednesday, April 29.

A judicial emergency was declared the next morning and weekend sessions scheduled for the first court appearances--arraignments--in which defendants are presented with formal charges.

Many misdemeanor suspects pleaded guilty at that time, getting 10 days in jail for curfew violations and 30 days for petty theft. But more is at stake in felony cases, and they invariably proceed to the next stage, the preliminary hearings, at which judges decide whether there is enough evidence to go to trial.

There was just a trickle of “prelims” in some Municipal Courts Wednesday, including those in Van Nuys and Inglewood--where the flood of hearings is not expected until today, continuing through next week. But the action was already frantic, at times, in Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles.

In Division 37 of the main Criminal Courts Building, Deputy Dist. Atty. Laura Baird spent much of the morning looking for the police officer who caught four men and a woman outside a swap meet at Broadway and 47th Street in a car loaded with shoes, purses, necklaces, pants and a cash register.

“Your honor, I lost my officer,” she reported when the case was called.

In the adjoining Division 36, another case--involving a home burglary unrelated to the riots--was dismissed because the turmoil in the courts had pushed its preliminary hearing past the legal deadlines. Two police officers scurried out at the direction of prosecutor James Falco, who said they should “get him,” meaning rearrest the defendant before he leaves the courthouse.

A court on the ninth floor, Division 58, had the type of multiple-defendant case that accentuated many of the complications of riot prosecutions.

They were the same seven defendants who had been in the first batch brought to court for arraignments 11 days earlier, young Boyle Heights men charged with burglary or receiving stolen property--mostly athletic shoes--from a Sports Plaza store.

Police reportedly arrested one pushing a cart loaded with loot, three others running away and the last three in or near a home where more merchandise was found.

“They may just be the seven slowest people in the neighborhood,” a public defender quipped at their first court appearance.

Now they were back, lined up behind their lawyers in the exact order they were listed in the written criminal complaint--an arrangement that draws an objection from one of the defense attorneys.

“There’s going to be a significant issue relative to I.D.,” she told Municipal Judge Larry Paul Fidler. “We believe that (police) officers almost exclusively I.D. defendants in the order they’re in the complaint.”

In other words, she didn’t think the police could remember, without help, who they saw doing what.

The judge ordered two defendants to change places. Then a second attorney objected to her client’s position. Then, another game of musical chairs.

Despite the moves, the first two witnesses--a security guard and a police sergeant--easily picked out the man who allegedly had the shopping cart. It was another matter, however, with the other defendants. The witnesses could recall only that they were “male Hispanics.”

“I couldn’t possibly see their faces, it was too dark,” said the security guard.

The sergeant needed to use booking photos to identify the others. But his testimony showed that his officers took precautions to keep track of the arrestees, numbering them in the order they were seized and placing them in different patrol cars from those arrested at other locations.

The judge seemed sympathetic to the extraordinary demands that were placed on police--he didn’t expect an officer to remember the face of every person he or she arrested during those crisis days. He ordered all seven held for trial.

It was much the same elsewhere.

In Inglewood Municipal Court, several batches of riot defendants were held over on charges of burglary and receiving stolen property after police officers testified that they saw large groups of “black guys” looting various stores in Hawthorne. When asked by Public Defender Marguerite D. Whichard to describe specifics about the men, the officers were unable to provide details other than their race.

“That seems to be the pattern in all of these cases,” Whichard said.

In Van Nuys, police told of noticing men in gang attire in a van near a North Hollywood mall. It was 4 p.m., before curfew on May 1, so they pulled over the van for having a bald tire--and found electronic equipment and clothing, some with price tags attached.

Robin DeWitt Arthur and Leon Charles Armand Lockwood, both 28, were ordered to stand trial for receiving stolen property.

They and other defendants who lost Wednesday’s round in court--the vast majority, by all accounts--now must consider the plea bargains offered by the district attorney’s office: one year in county jail in connection with less serious lootings, 16 months in state prison in others.

Ken N. Green, who oversees branch offices of the county public defender’s office, complained that the terms were too severe for offenses that, in milder times, might draw misdemeanor petty theft charges. “It’s all posturing,” Green said. “It’s a political year for their boss (Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner).”

With that, he and others looked forward to the steps ahead--the plea bargains and trials--for the thousands of alleged looters from the riots of ’92.

Times staff writers Stephanie Chavez and Julio Moran contributed to this story.

Riot Felonies

The first geographic breakdown of 2,048 felony charges stemming from the recent riots shows that they were scattered throughout Los Angeles County, with most filed in the central Los Angeles area. The most common felonies have been commercial burglary and possession of stolen property, according to prosecutors. Locations listed are where the district attorney’s office filed the charges, and figures do not necessarily indicate the number of arrests in those areas. OFFICE: FELONIES Alhambra: 3 Bellflower: 3 Beverly Hills: 16 Central L.A.: 1,172 Compton: 215 Downey: 1 El Monte: 5 Florence-Firestone: 35 Huntington Park: 35 Inglewood: 118 Long Beach: 175 Pasadena: 58 Pomona: 6 San Fernando: 28 Santa Monica: 48 Torrance: 75 Van Nuys: 48 West Covina: 4 Whittier: 3 TOTAL: 2,048 SOURCE: Los Angeles County district attorney’s office