3 Contradict Officer in Truck Driver’s Slaying : Trial: No one was in the path of the tow truck when the suspect was shot, the witnesses textify. The lawman says he feared the truck would strike passerby.

Three witnesses testified Tuesday that there was no one in the path of a moving tow truck before its driver was shot to death by a Los Angeles police officer.

In addition, two of the witnesses said the tow truck driver seemed to have been making sure no one was in his way by waving his hands.

Even after driver John Daniels was mortally wounded, one of the witnesses testified, heseemed to deliberately veer his vehicle to avoid hitting a car.

The testimony came during a hearing to determine if Officer Douglas Iversen will stand trial on a murder charge. He is the first Los Angeles County law enforcement officer in more than a decade to be charged with murder for an on-duty incident.

Iversen has contended that he shot Daniels, 36, at a Southwest Los Angeles gas station last year because he feared Daniels’ truck would hit passersby. The officer and his partner were on their way to an emergency call when they spotted Daniels’ truck and pulled into the gas station on motorcycles.

Witnesses on Tuesday confirmed Iversen’s contention that Daniels had resisted when the officer tried to pull him out of his truck, and had begun to slowly drive away when he was shot.

A police official testified Monday that Iversen and his partner violated department policy by ignoring the higher-priority emergency call. Iversen also violated policy, said the official, by shooting at the driver of a moving vehicle and in using deadly force against Daniels.

The prosecutors handling the case said outside court Tuesday that Iversen was angry with Daniels about an earlier incident in which Daniels’ tow truck had been impounded, then inadvertently released.

Iversen “wanted that truck back,” said Dep. Dist. Atty. Katherine Mader.

Jess Gomez, an district attorney’s investigator, had earlier testified that Iversen’s supervisor told him he knew the truck had been given back, but had not told Iversen to retrieve it.

The witnesses who said they saw Daniels’ shooting gave accounts of it that generally were consistent with each other.

Two witnesses--Jacklyn Davis, 41, and Monika Smith, 23--testified in person. Michael Washington, who was not otherwise identified, gave his testimony on a videotape.

Davis, who was on a bus directly across from the shooting scene, said after Daniels was shot and his truck continued traveling into traffic, she could see him swerve to avoid hitting a car.

She testified she tried to tell what she had seen to officers who arrived at the scene after the shooting. The officers brushed her off, she later said outside the courtroom.