FBI Investigates Fatal Shooting by IRS Agent : Violence: Probe will examine whether intoxicated victim’s civil rights were violated. Slaying occurred in Arleta after a traffic dispute.

The FBI has launched a preliminary civil rights investigation into the death of Mickey Jay Smith, a Bakersfield man shot and killed by an off-duty IRS agent following a traffic dispute on the Golden State Freeway in Arleta last July.

Myron Marlin, a spokesman for the Department of Justice in Washington, confirmed this week that his agency requested the investigation following a complaint filed with the Justice Department. FBI spokesman John Hoos said the probe was opened Sept. 28 and its results will be forwarded to attorneys at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, who will decide whether to prosecute.

The July 16 shooting has also been investigated by the Major Crimes Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. Lt. Daniel Lang, who heads the division, declined to comment on the results of the investigation pending a review of the case by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.

According to police and coroner reports examined by The Times, the incident started shortly before 7:30 p.m. on the Golden State Freeway, where Smith was a passenger in a rental truck driven by his friend Chris Stayton. During a lane change, Stayton swerved in front of a car driven by an off-duty IRS agent identified by police as Paul Hamilton Davis, 45.

Stayton’s account, contained in a LAPD preliminary homicide investigation report, is that Smith began taunting Davis, who followed Stayton and Smith, both 21, off the Branford Avenue exit. Both vehicles stopped along the side of the road, near an industrial complex. There, Stayton said Smith got out of the truck shouting obscenities and repeatedly shoved Davis, who subsequently shot and killed Smith.

The Times obtained the police investigation report from the victim’s mother, Lee Craig, who received a copy from police. LAPD detectives confirmed that Craig was sent a copy of the report.

Stayton and other witnesses told police they did not realize Davis was a law enforcement officer until after the shooting, when police arrived and the agent, dressed in business attire, flashed his badge at officers.

“He never said anything,” Stayton said in an interview Friday. “He never said a word and I was waiting for him to say something because Mike (Smith) was yelling at him.”

Police said that at the time of the shooting Smith was unarmed. A coroner’s toxicology report found that he was drunk--his blood alcohol level, at 0.18%, more than twice the legal driving limit of 0.08%.

Davis declined to be interviewed, but his attorney, Gerald L. Chaleff, said that Davis initially followed Stayton and Smith off the freeway because he feared their actions on the freeway posed a threat to the public.

“Mr. Davis’ stance was that he was performing his job as a law enforcement officer,” Chaleff said. “When all of the investigation is done it will be seen that Mr. Davis did not in any way violate the rights of Mr. Smith.”

As a special agent, Davis was licensed to carry a firearm. Agents in the IRS criminal investigation division handle such dangerous assignments as money laundering and organized crime probes. An IRS manual for special agents states: “A firearm may be discharged only as a last resort when in the considered opinion of the special agent there is danger of loss of life or serious bodily injury to the agent or another person.”

Since the shooting, Smith’s mother--Craig--has written congressmen, contacted witnesses and kept in touch with police in an effort to find out what happened to her son. She said she was not the one who alerted the Justice Department to the shooting, however, and Justice spokesman Marlin declined to disclose who did contact them.

Of the 8,599 complaints filed with the Justice Department last year, the FBI investigated 3,212, Marlin said. The FBI is the investigative arm of the Department of Justice.

Craig said that on the day of his death, Smith had accompanied Stayton to deliver some drums of oil rigging fluid to El Centro. At the time of the shooting, the two men were on their way back home to Bakersfield.

Smith is the father of a 16-month-old daughter, whom he took care of in between temporary jobs as a laborer in the oil business, Craig said.

“Everybody called him Mr. Mom,” Craig said. “She was his whole life.”

“I can’t imagine my son jeopardizing his life when he knew this guy had a gun,” Craig said. “There’s just a lot of things I don’t understand.”

In Stayton’s statement to police, he said that following the near collision, Smith leaned out the window of the truck and almost immediately began shouting obscenities and gesturing at Davis. He said Davis followed them through about eight miles of traffic and then off the freeway, according to the LAPD report.

Before the truck came to a stop, Stayton told police, Smith got out and ran toward Davis, shouting more obscenities at the agent and saying, “Why did you pull that gun on me? If you are going to pull it, you better use it.” Stayton said when he approached Davis and Smith, the agent had gotten out of his car and was holding a gun in his right hand.

Stayton told police he was about to push Smith--who he conceded was acting “extremely aggressive”--away from Davis when the agent suddenly fired his gun at Smith’s chest.

Smith staggered backward and then forward into the street, where he collapsed. The agent ordered Stayton to the ground and handcuffed him, then handcuffed Smith, too, before dragging him by the feet from the street to the curb, according to the police report.

In a telephone interview, Stayton said although Smith was acting aggressively, he did not believe his friend posed enough of a threat to Davis to warrant the shooting.

“He could have just pushed him backward and Mike would have fell down he was so drunk,” Stayton said. “But instead, he shot him.”

According to the LAPD report, Davis is 6 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs 205 pounds. Smith stood at 5 feet, 10 inches and weighed 160 pounds.

Other witnesses, who were listed in the police investigation report, corroborated portions of Stayton’s account.

James Pennington, a security guard who was driving east on Branford on his way home, said Smith nearly stumbled into the path of his car.

“Blood was running out of his nose and mouth and his T-shirt was also covered with blood,” Pennington said. Smith spun around and collapsed onto his back, just as Pennington drove by, he said.

Pennington said he slowed down, turned his car around and parked it across the street near a fruit stand on the northeast corner of Branford and Haddon. From that vantage point, Pennington said that he saw Stayton lying on his stomach, handcuffed.

Pennington then saw the man, later identified to him by police as an IRS agent, checking the glove compartment and the trunk of his own car before approaching Smith and dragging him out of the road and back to the curb.

Sarah Garcia and Lupe Beltran were driving east on Branford with their two sons when they spotted the men arguing. Garcia said she pulled over to the side of the road, about 20 to 30 feet from where the men stood, because she was curious about what was happening. Both women said they witnessed the shooting from their car.

Garcia, who was listed as a witness in the LAPD report, however, said it was the IRS agent, who repeatedly shoved Smith--not vice versa as Stayton had recalled.

“The guy in the suit was pushing the other guy and then he pulled his gun and shot him,” Garcia said.

LAPD Detective O. E. Marlow said other witnesses remembered it differently.

“From her snapshot maybe it looked like that, but we have two other witnesses who said the agent was getting struck in the face when the shot was fired,” Marlow said.

Garcia said a crowd of about 50 people emerged from the apartment complex across the street from the shooting scene. She said she got out of her car and, as she approached the scene, she heard Stayton “screaming that the IRS agent had killed his friend.”

Garcia and Pennington said they did not realize Davis was a law enforcement agent either until he flashed his badge at police.

IRS officials have declined to comment on whether their agency is conducting its own investigation.

“Obviously it was an incident that involved an IRS employee, but it was after hours and it did not involve IRS activities,” IRS spokesman Robert Giannangeli said.

Davis was reassigned to an office job following the shooting, which Giannangeli said is routine during investigations of agents.