Slain Youth’s Family Demands Trial of Deputy in Shooting : Law enforcement: Federal prosecutors are urged to file civil rights charges. The officer who killed David Ortiz has since been fired.

The family and friends of a 15-year-old Montebello boy slain by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy in 1991 urged federal prosecutors Friday to take action in an investigation that has dragged on for almost a year.

It has been 11 months since the U.S. attorney’s office promised to investigate alleged civil rights violations in the shooting one year ago of David Angel Ortiz. And it has been five months since the deputy, Jose Belmares, 30, was fired because, according to a letter from Undersheriff Robert A. Edmonds, he had shown “deplorable” lack of judgment and “disregard of life” and had brought “discredit and embarrassment” to himself and the department.

However, the investigating assistant U.S. attorneys, David Scheper and Diane Hawkes, said Friday they do not know when their investigation will be complete or when a decision will be made on whether to bring a federal case against Belmares for deprivation of civil rights.

The Ortiz family’s attorney, Miguel F. Garcia, told Scheper in a letter he delivered Friday: “Your investigation began in September of 1991. . . . How much longer must the Ortiz family wait before justice is rendered?” Family members and friends picketed outside the building.

An autopsy showed that Ortiz was shot in the back Aug. 28, 1991, after a high-speed chase. Belmares said he first fired a shot at the teen-ager to prevent him from backing his car into the deputy’s patrol car, and then fired four more shots because he thought the youth might be armed.

In Belmares’ termination letter last March 23, Edmonds wrote, “It is clear that firing your weapon at the subject, or his car, would not prevent the subject from striking your car.” The later shots, he added, were fired even though the deputy was not under immediate threat.

“You did not know if Ortiz was armed as he was running from you, yet you chose to fire four shots at him, force that resulted in his death,” Edmonds wrote. “Your lack of judgment in the use of deadly force in these incidents is deplorable.”

Belmares has appealed his firing, and a Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission hearing on the matter will be held Nov. 16.

Scheper and Hawkes met with Garcia, Ortiz’s father and his 11-year-old sister after receiving the family’s letter. Scheper later told reporters, “We share their belief the sooner the decision the better.

“We are looking at the facts of the case earnestly,” he said. “It is very time-consuming.” He said that federal civil rights charges often are filed long after an incident, and that the pending case against four Los Angeles police officers accused in the Rodney G. King beating is scheduled to be tried almost two years after the beating.

In the Ortiz case, Scheper said, the investigation was deferred until Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner decided not to launch a state prosecution last December. Since then it has been hampered by at least one change in investigative assignments in the U.S. attorney’s office, he said.

As for the Ortiz family’s impatience, he said, “They’re not the only ones affected. Just as great care is owed them in our investigation, great care is owed those whose interests are contrary. And great care is being taken. Someone is going to be outraged no matter what we do.”

But Garcia is not satisfied.

“There is the public interest to consider here too,” the attorney said. “The public interest demands a quick resolution of these issues.

“No civil rights investigation should take more than 60 to 90 days,” he said.