Officer to Stand Trial in Truck Driver’s Death

A Los Angeles police officer who shot an unarmed tow truck driver to death last year was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges of second-degree murder after a judge refused to drop the charge or reduce it to voluntary manslaughter.

Municipal Judge David M. Horwitz issued the ruling after a three-day hearing in which prosecutors argued that Officer Douglas Iversen killed John Daniels at a gas station only because Daniels had affronted him.

Iversen is the first Los Angeles County law enforcement officer in 11 years to be charged so severely in an on-duty shooting death.

In 1982, a sheriff’s deputy was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting of a pregnant woman whose fetus died. He was convicted and served eight months in jail.

The shooting of Daniels at Florence Avenue and Crenshaw Boulevard occurred a month after the 1992 riots, not far from one of the most infamous flash points. It caused an angry disturbance among a crowd that had gathered after the shooting.

Iversen’s defense has been that the shooting was justified because he thought Daniels was going to run over nearby pedestrians; witnesses have testified that no one was in danger.

Iversen’s lawyer, John D. Barnett, vowed to challenge Horwitz’s ruling.

“(Iversen) was just doing his job,” Barnett said. “Now he’s being punished for it.”

Barnett said Iversen was part of a police task force that had been cracking down on uncertified tow truck drivers. The lawyer said at least 14 people have been killed by uncertified drivers racing to accidents.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine Mader, who is prosecuting Iversen along with Deputy Dist. Atty. Hank Goldberg, scoffed at the contention.

“Even if that were so, John Daniels hadn’t killed anyone,” she said.

In his argument in support of the second-degree murder charge, Goldberg said Iversen and his partner had been involved two weeks before the shooting in a chase involving Daniels’ truck. The truck, which Daniels was not driving at the time, had been impounded but no one was charged with a crime.

Under the crackdown on uncertified drivers, Goldberg said, Iversen’s supervisor had to approve the release of the truck, but the vehicle was inadvertently released without such approval.

Goldberg said Iversen confronted Daniels because he was angry that the truck had been released and nobody had been charged.

The officer and his partner had been on their way to answer an emergency call when they saw the truck at the gas station, according to testimony. They abandoned the emergency call in violation of police policy, a police official testified, and instead pulled into the gas station.

Witnesses said that when Daniels tried to give officers papers regarding the truck, they refused to take them.

Daniels swore at the officers, jumped into his truck and turned on the ignition, the witnesses said. When the officers tried to pull him from the vehicle, Daniels clamped his hands on the steering wheel and would not get out, according to testimony.

Barnett told Horwitz that Daniels pushed one of the officers, knocking him almost under the truck’s wheels, but witnesses disputed the description.

Deputy Chief Lawrence Fetters testified that Daniels’ behavior never reached the level where deadly force was justified.

Furthermore, he said, the Los Angeles Police Department forbids officers to shoot at moving vehicles because if they hit the driver, the vehicle will be unguided.

Goldberg told Horwitz that Iversen had become so angry, however, that he lost control. “This is a contempt of cop situation,” he added. “If anything was endangering people, it was Iversen’s activity.”