Shooting Fuels Mistrust of Police Officers in Public Housing Project : Law enforcement: Officer says Sergio Garcia threatened him with a flashlight. Family lawyers scoff at the idea and talk of filing a lawsuit.

To live in the Rancho San Pedro public housing project is to know police harassment, many residents say. They claim that anyone who is black or Latino, who looks poor or is just outside at the wrong time is likely to be harassed and humiliated by the police.

Police say that perspective is inaccurate. Skewed tales of harassment and partial truths can take on a life of their own, according to the officers, until they become community legend regardless of the truth.

Nonetheless, the prevailing sentiment in the project is that the police are not to be trusted, and that they deal with residents in a combative manner. And that is part of the reason why few people in this neighborhood of north San Pedro believe that 27-year-old Sergio Garcia was threatening an officer with a flashlight when he was shot and killed May 24.

The events leading to Garcia’s death are under investigation, and Los Angeles police officials have declined to discuss the incident in detail.

What police do say is that Garcia was pulled over shortly after midnight on May 24 because he was driving with his headlights turned off. According to police, Garcia got out of his car and ran, and Officer Mark Griego, 26, began chasing him.

Police said Garcia jumped a fence. Griego also jumped it, but dropped his flashlight in the process, police said. The authorities allege that Garcia picked up the foot-long flashlight, ran a short distance, then turned and threatened the officer. Griego, fearing his life was in danger, then fired four rounds into Garcia.

Garcia’s family and their attorneys, Samuel Paz of Alhambra and Diane Middleton of San Pedro, dispute this account.

“We do not believe (Garcia) had a flashlight,” Middleton said. “That’s too ridiculous to be considered. And while we reject that completely, let’s consider even if he did: Sergio was 5-foot-2 and 124 pounds facing a policeman who should have had a baton, a Taser gun and Mace.

“This is an officer with training for just this type of situation. Are we to believe that that kind of officer can’t apprehend that kind of suspect? We can’t ignore Sergio’s size.”

Middleton said the Garcia family plans to file a civil rights and wrongful death suit against the city in connection with Garcia’s death.

A recently released coroner’s report shows that Garcia died from two shots fired to the chest. He also was wounded in the back of his left and right shoulders. Middleton says the fact that Garcia suffered wounds in the back strengthens her contention that the shooting occurred because Griego panicked.

According to the autopsy, Garcia’s body showed traces of cocaine but no alcohol or PCP.

Police will not comment on the case until the investigation into the shooting is completed, said Lt. John Duncan, an LAPD spokesman. The shooting is under investigation by the officer-involved shootings unit of LAPD’s robbery and homicide division; Griego has been assigned to desk duty until it is completed.

As a measure of concern over the shooting, Middleton said between 100 and 200 people from around the Harbor area packed a community meeting with police three days after Garcia’s death, and a few days later, about 300 marched to LAPD’s Harbor Division headquarters to protest the shooting.

Also, a fund-raising potluck luncheon is planned for Saturday at 1 p.m. at Toberman Settlement House, 131 Grand St.

Garcia’s sister, 22-year-old Marisol Garcia, and 12 others have formed the Committee Against Police Brutality and Harassment, which meets weekly and plans to launch a newspaper documenting cases of police brutality and other police-related events in the community.

She has her own story of harassment, but concedes that she never filed a complaint against the police--thinking, like others in the housing project, that nothing would come of it.

According to Marisol Garcia’s account, she was with a group of friends in 1991 when their car was pulled over by an LAPD officer. One of the officers, she said, used a baton to spread her legs and then put the flashlight up under her skirt.

“I felt embarrassed, I felt so . . . ugly,” she said.

Harbor Division police know some people think they harass people more than they help, but they maintain that is an erroneous impression.

“Clearly that’s a perception that’s there,” said Lt. Alan B. Kerstein, commanding officer of Harbor Division detectives. “That community meeting was a very hard meeting, my hardest in 25 years.

“They seem to have a perception of harassment by officers, which you always have to take with a grain of salt when you’re talking about (entire communities). If there are 90 to 100 people present and you serve a community that has 200,000, you have to stop and remember you’re dealing with a very small portion of the population.

“But then harassment is so subjective,” he added. “Every case has to be looked at individually. As for behaving with arrogance? I suspect that, yes, that’s true. I suspect there are times we’ve been arrogant all over the department and we’re doing much better with how we treat people regardless of their place in society.”

Stories of support for the police also ripple through the community. Possibly the most telling came after last year’s riots when community activists and others baked more than 2,000 cookies and delivered them to the police to thank officers for protecting them and their property.

“Overall, I think our relationships have always been good with all the people in Harbor. In fact, the Harbor Division has always been envied (in the department) because we have such a supportive population,” Kerstein said.

Overall, in fact, complaints against officers in the Harbor Division run below the average for LAPD divisions, said Carol Heppe, director of Police Watch, a private, Los Angeles-based police misconduct lawyer referral service.

In 1991, Police Watch received 25 complaints of harassment by Harbor Division officers out of 1,049 filed against the entire force. In 1992, 18 complaints were filed against officers in Harbor Division. So far in 1993, five complaints have been lodged against Harbor Division officers.

Project residents stress that officers’ behavior cannot be judged by counting formal complaints against them.

“The thing is that nobody has ever heard of anybody winning against the police,” said Rancho San Pedro resident Moses Ponce, 25. “That’s the reason people haven’t done it. But now that’s going to change. We have to demand some respect.”