Training Officer Reportedly Fired Shot Fatal to Deputy : Law enforcement: Orange County department releases little information. Local officials say the incident, during an informal drill in a parking lot, may have violated basic safety standards.

A field training officer for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department fired the fatal shot that killed a fellow deputy during an impromptu training session at a movie theater parking lot, sources said Monday.

As criticism mounted about the Christmas Day shooting of Darryn Leroy Robins, sheriff’s officials identified the deputy involved in the incident as Brian Scanlan but refused to provide further details.

Some community leaders and law enforcement experts, meanwhile, asserted that the informal training session--held in mid-afternoon Saturday in a public parking lot behind the theater--may have violated basic standards of police safety.

“This shouldn’t happen,” said Officer John Service, adjutant at the Los Angeles Police Department training academy. “We confine our training, especially practical-situation simulation, to city property, to headquarters or to the academy. We don’t go over to a local shopping center. It’s just not done.”

In their only official explanation, sheriff’s officials said Sunday, 27 hours after the incident, that Robins, 30, was hit by a single shot from another deputy’s gun while they were simulating a “car stop” at a lot behind the Edwards El Toro movie theater about 2 p.m. Saturday. Robins, an eight-year veteran who was married and had a 17-month-old daughter, was pronounced dead at Saddleback Memorial Hospital in Mission Viejo.

Lt. Tom Garner, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said Monday that Robins, who lived in Torrance, was shot “in the facial area” or in the “upper torso-face” area. He added that at least two other Sheriff’s Department personnel were on the scene at the time.

But other details of the shooting remained scant on Monday, as Sheriff Brad Gates and other officials declined comment. Authorities who normally release many details of local shootings have refused to discuss even some of the most basic aspects of a case that one sheriff’s official said has devastated the department.

“We’re not giving any information out about it because this is a pending investigation and we don’t want to compromise the security of the investigation by telling people anything about it,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans.

The role in the shooting of a field training officer--responsible for training new deputies--may deepen the gravity of the case, several law enforcement officials said.

The LAPD’s Service said a sergeant from the academy called Orange County officials to learn more about the case. “What we would like to find out is why they were having this training out there (in public) and why they didn’t clear the weapon” and remove the bullets, he said.

“They always say it accidentally fired, but the gun does not accidentally go off,” Service said. “You have to squeeze the trigger. Everyone knows you don’t put your finger on the trigger” during a training exercise.

Glen Fine, deputy executive director of the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, said that on a quiet day, “it would not be that unusual” for a deputy to break from normal patrols to walk a new officer through an exercise and “go over tactics.”

Fine stressed that he was not familiar with the details of the Lake Forest incident. But in general, he said, “It’s well-accepted by everyone involved with firearms training that you never point a weapon at another person--loaded or unloaded. . . . It’s an axiom.”

Officials at the Orange County district attorney’s office said they will review the shooting to determine whether criminal charges are warranted, but they refused to release any details on the probe because they said it might influence potential witnesses.

Several Lake Forest City Council members, unaware that the Sheriff’s Department conducted informal training while patrolling their area, said they want to ensure that the district attorney pursues a full investigation.

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Times staff writer Len Hall contributed to this report.