LOS ANGELES : 4 Officers Suspended for Leaving Riot Posts
Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams has punished four officers who abandoned their patrols during the riots to go to a Santa Monica bar--suspending them without pay for six months.
Department disciplinary boards recently found all four Newton Division officers guilty of leaving their assigned areas without authorization when they drove to the Denim & Diamonds nightclub shortly after midnight May 5. By that time, the citywide violence had subsided, but the Police Department remained on a state of alert.
The boards had recommended that three of the officers be fired and that the fourth be suspended for six months. On Friday, Williams reduced all the penalties to six-month suspensions.
The affected officers are Daniel Marrufo, 26, who joined the department almost four years ago, and two-year veterans Frank Kryshak, 28; Mike P. Gilbert, 24, and Kenneth Aragon, 30.
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