Reinstatement Urged for Deputy Fired in Slaying of Youth, 15 : Law enforcement: A hearing officer rules that Jose Belmares acted reasonably when he killed a teen-ager. Case now goes to County Civil Service panel.

In one of the most controversial Sheriff’s shooting cases of the last two years, a Los Angeles County hearing officer has recommended the reinstatement of a deputy who was fired for policy violations after he fatally shot a 15-year-old Montebello youth in 1991.

Civil Service hearing officer Michael Prihar ruled Tuesday that Deputy Jose Belmares acted out of a reasonable belief that David Angel Ortiz and a companion, both gang members, “were armed and posed a threat to him and his partner” when he shot Ortiz late at night in an Artesia neighborhood where gangs are common.

After hearing 11 days of testimony and reviewing the case for months, Prihar concluded in a 59-page opinion that Belmares, 30, “is a fit and suitable person” to be a sheriff’s deputy and that Sheriff Sherman Block and other superior officers were wrong in discharging him. The case will go to the county Civil Service Commission for its decision, possibly in about two weeks.

Belmares’ attorney, Richard Shinee of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, hailed Prihar’s findings Tuesday, declaring that they rectify misrepresentations that had portrayed Belmares as an irresponsible officer.

But the Ortiz family’s attorney, Miguel Garcia, said Prihar’s conclusions were horrible and said he would appeal to the Civil Service Commission for a new hearing to re-examine the evidence.

Garcia charged that the presentation of the sheriff’s case for firing Belmares by Senior Deputy County Counsel Dixon M. Holston “bordered on incompetence and malpractice.” Garcia contended that the county counsel’s office has a conflict of interest because it is defending the county against a civil suit by the Ortiz family at the same time it tries to uphold Belmares’ firing. Holston could not be reached for comment.

Two of the four highest-ranking officials in the Sheriff’s Department, Undersheriff Jerry Harper and Assistant Sheriff Raymon Morris, both testified at the lengthy hearing that a high-ranking sheriff’s review panel concurred that Belmares had violated several department policies in shooting Ortiz.

But Prihar said the department did not meet its burden of proof as to its allegations that the deputy had fired without sufficient reason.

No gun was recovered from Ortiz, but Belmares testified that he fired several shots after Ortiz, who was running after a car chase ended, had turned toward him with one hand at his waistband in what he thought was a threatening manner.

Prihar concluded that Belmares’ “conduct in response to this reasonable belief and the surrounding circumstances and available background information was reasonable conduct as might be taken by a reasonable deputy under similar circumstances.”

Prihar noted that another member of Ortiz’s gang, the Chivas gang, had been shot just hours before the incident and he said this “provided a reasonable basis for (Belmares) to assume the potential of a retaliatory shooting in the near future.”

When Belmares and his partner, Deputy Robert Orona, saw Ortiz and a companion late that night at a fast-food restaurant in a car “with its trunk open under justifiably suspicious circumstances,” and when the car, which they suspected was stolen, “pulled out of the restaurant in a suspicious manner” and did not stop, forcing the officers to give chase, a train of events began that reasonably led to the shooting, Prihar concluded.

Testimony at the hearing showed there were actually three separate shooting incidents in about a 15-minute period. The first occurred when Ortiz, who was driving, stopped and then backed his car into the sheriff’s car.

Belmares and Orona each fired once in what they testified was an effort to stop the ramming. The chase resumed for a short distance upon which the second and third shootings took place. Ortiz was killed in the second shooting and his companion, Robert Romo, was unhurt in the third.

Sheriff’s officials contended that all three shootings were out of policy. But Prihar said that at each step, as matters developed, Belmares was acting reasonably in deciding to shoot.

Orona’s actions were not a subject of the hearing. Orona was disciplined but not fired.