Jury Rejects Damages in Slaying by Police Officers

Two Los Angeles police officers who shot and killed a gun-firing New Year’s celebrant in 1991 are not liable for damages, a jury has decided.

Jurors in the civil trial in Los Angeles Superior Court voted 10 to 2 Wednesday against awarding damages to the parents of Nicolas Contreras, a 26-year-old factory worker killed early Jan. 1, 1991, when he reportedly threatened police officers with a gun he had been firing repeatedly into the air.

The case, along with two similar ones involving Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, spurred protests from the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles in the weeks after the shootings.

The police officers, who were not identified, said they heard gunfire in the vicinity of Contreras’ South-Central Los Angeles home and went to investigate. When they arrived, they said, they saw Contreras holding a 9-millimeter pistol, which he pointed at them even though they identified themselves as police officers and warned him to drop the gun. They fired, hitting Contreras four times.

Marco Lopez, a San Diego attorney representing Contreras’ family, contended the officers failed to identify themselves and shot before issuing their warning. He sought $600,000 for the parents, Cayetano and Felicitas Contreras.

But Deputy City Atty. Ellen Fawls said the racially mixed jury agreed with the city’s argument that the officers had acted in self-defense.

Authorities recovered 70 spent casings at the scene, and found several bullets in Contreras’ pockets and several boxes of ammunition in the home. In addition, the coroner’s examination found that Contreras had been heavily intoxicated, she said.

“He planned to continue to ‘celebrate.’ It was lucky that nobody else got killed,” Fawls said Thursday. She speculated the jurors’ awareness of the danger of such celebrations, plus Contreras’ intoxication, were important factors in the verdict. Lopez could not be reached for comment.