Top Sheriff’s Aides Took Role in Firing

A sheriff’s investigator who probed the fatal 1991 shooting of a 15-year-old Montebello youth testified Monday that Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and other high-ranking department officials took unusual hands-on roles in the firing of the deputy who killed the youngster.

The testimony came during a county Civil Service Commission hearing into a plea for reinstatement filed by former Deputy Jose Belmares, who is appealing his firing in the death of David Angel Ortiz. Belmares’ attorney, Richard Shinee, said the dismissal was motivated by “pure and simple politics.”

Under cross-examination from Shinee, Sgt. Raymond Marlett of the Sheriff’s Internal Affairs Bureau, said that Block attended a case review meeting into Belmares’ conduct--the first time in 50 such meetings that he had seen the sheriff attend.

Although Marlett said that he and another investigator would normally have presented a report on the case, the matter was instead presented by Sheriff’s Division Chief Leroy D. Baca, the highest-ranking Latino in the department. Marlett acknowledged under cross-examination by Shinee that such a move represented a departure from regular procedure.

Also present at the meeting, Marlett testified, was Undersheriff Robert A. Edmonds, Assistant Sheriffs Jerry Harper and Richard Foreman, and Division Chief Ray L. Morris, who later replaced Foreman. They constituted the highest command group in the Sheriff’s Department, and Marlett agreed with Shinee that they were aware that the credibility of the department was at stake in the highly publicized Ortiz case.

Marlett also testified that the meeting was marked by a strong intervention on Belmares’ behalf by the deputy’s superior officer, Capt. John E. Anderson, who commands the Lakewood station.

Marlett said Anderson challenged the investigators’ summary of the facts in the shooting and insisted that the incident was justified and within Sheriff’s Department policy. Marlett’s investigation had indicated that Belmares, 30, had broken departmental rules by shooting Ortiz in the back of the neck.

Shinee also introduced an interdepartmental memo into evidence Monday in which Anderson contended that Belmares and a fellow officer had fired because they feared that Ortiz and a companion might be armed and ready to shoot them.

The testimony provided a detailed look into disciplinary proceedings in the Sheriff’s Department, which are usually private.

In the firing of Belmares, a letter to him from Edmonds declared that the deputy had shown “deplorable” lack of judgment and “disregard of life” in killing Ortiz, which the undersheriff said had brought “discredit and embarrassment” to the department.

In another development Monday, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said that despite the revelation last week that eight sheriff’s deputies have been fired in another case--the fatal shooting and beating of a suspected kidnaper--the prosecutor will not reopen its investigation into that case.

“We reviewed the case very, very thoroughly and we thought there was not sufficient evidence for a criminal filing (against the deputies),” said Sandi Gibbons.