Fatal Shot Fired by Training Officer : Shooting: Sources say field trainer killed fellow O.C. deputy during impromptu session. Sheriff’s Dept. reveals little as police safety experts criticize incident.

A field training officer for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department fired the 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, sheriff’s officials identified the deputy involved in the incident as Brian Scanlan but refused to provide further details. Scanlan could not be reached.

Some community leaders and law enforcement experts, meanwhile, asserted that the informal training session--held in mid-afternoon Saturday at a public parking lot behind the movie 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 Department officials said Sunday--some 27 hours after the incident--that Deputy Darryn Leroy 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 around 2 p.m. Saturday. Robins, an eight-year veteran who was married with 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 was shot “in the facial area” or in the “upper torso-face” area. He added that at least two other Sheriff’s Department personnel--including a training officer and a trainee--were on the scene at the time.

But other details of the shooting remained scant, as Sheriff Brad Gates and other officials declined comment. While authorities normally release many details of local shootings, they 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 district attorney’s office routinely reviews all officer-involved shootings and will determine whether criminal charges are warranted.

The Times asked Sheriff’s Department officials repeatedly Monday afternoon to comment on Deputy Scanlan’s role in the shooting. Officials steadfastly refused, but later in the evening released a brief statement confirming that Scanlan was “involved in this tragic incident.”

The press release referred all other questions to Evans in the district attorney’s office.

“It’s a bummer they said refer the questions to me. . . . I guess they want me to be the fall guy, but I can’t say anything beyond the release,” Evans said.

Evans confirmed, however, that Scanlan fired the fatal shot. “That’s what (the press release) means. I think that’s what they’re trying to say. It’s just inartfully worded,” he said.

Law enforcement sources familiar with the case said that Scanlan was a field training officer on the scene with Robins and an unidentified trainee.

A clerk in the Sheriff’s Department’s South County station in Laguna Niguel said that Scanlan had been placed on administrative leave Saturday because of his involvement in the shooting. But Assistant Sheriff Dennis W. La Ducer, when asked whether Scanlan was involved in the shooting and had been put on leave as a result, said, “Your information is wrong.” He said no one had been put on administrative leave.

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La Ducer refused comment on reports that a field training officer had fired the fatal shot, referring all other questions to the district attorney’s office.

“This is something that’s hit us like a hammer in terms of mood. Everyone’s just devastated,” La Ducer said. “But that’s about all I can say.”

Sheriff’s officials said the department has a written policy on training procedures, but they said it was not available for immediate public release. They also corrected the spelling of Robins’ name, which they had misspelled in previous news releases.

The role in the shooting of a field training officer--responsible for training new deputies--may deepen the gravity of the case, which marked the 32nd death of an Orange County peace officer in the last 80 years, several law enforcement officials said.

“The need for ongoing training is obvious, but there are procedures, and I don’t know what they were doing out there,” said one law enforcement official who asked not to be identified.

“What the hell were they doing with a (loaded) gun? That’s the first thing you ask,” the source said. “You don’t draw your weapon in the field unless you plan to use it.”

Service, the LAPD academy officer, 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.”

Several Lake Forest City Council members, unaware that the Sheriff’s Department conducted informal training in their city, said they want to ensure that the district attorney pursues a full investigation into the incident. They also want investigators to find out how often informal training sessions are conducted and how safe they are.

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“Obviously, we are very concerned,” Councilwoman Ann Van Haun said. “As a council, we want to assure our citizens that this is not something (deputies) do all the time, so they don’t need to be afraid of such a thing. . . . Why they would do this at this time and exactly what happened remains to be seen.”

Although he expressed confidence in the work of the Sheriff’s Department, Mayor Pro Tem Richard T. Dixon said the incident “doesn’t have a good appearance” and added that questions surrounding the shooting must be cleared up as quickly as possible.

“I don’t want to second-guess the investigators, but we must ask why this was taking place in a semi-public area and how in the world something like this could happen,” Dixon said. “This does raise those issues . . . and hopefully we will have those questions answered in a few days.”

Lake Forest Mayor Marcia Rudolph said the city of 60,000 residents should grieve for not one, but two deputies. She said that Sheriff’s Lt. Bob NeSmith, who oversees patrols in the Lake Forest area, told her: “ ‘I have lost not one, but two fine deputies,’ because the officer whose weapon discharged is perhaps in more hell than anyone.”

NeSmith was unavailable for comment Monday.

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, whose 5th District includes Lake Forest, said he knew the case was an unusual one when Sheriff Gates sent him a letter by messenger Sunday evening advising him of the shooting. The letter arrived more than 24 hours after the incident, after initial reports of the shooting had already appeared in the news media.

“I knew it was something very special . . . because that is the first time I’ve ever gotten a letter delivered by a press officer from the Sheriff’s Department in 22 years,” Riley said.

Indeed, Gates on Monday paid his third personal visit to Robins’ survivors, spending time in the home near Inglewood where Robins grew up.

Friends, neighbors and relatives traded memories, mixing laughter with tears.

“We’re a very close family so we’re just reminiscing amongst ourselves,” said Venita Davis, Robins’ sister, as she gathered with friends at the house, where a Christmas wreath hung on the front door.

“Darryn used to take me into the house and show me how to play bass--we used to laugh,” said Gerald Boagni, 23, a neighbor whose older brothers were close friends of Robins. “He was a hell of a man. He was a family man, real gentle. I never heard him raise his voice.”

A graduate of Washington Preparatory High School in Los Angeles, Robins worked most of his career on patrol in south Orange County and had helped train officers in the jail and on patrol, Garner, the Sheriff’s Department spokesman said. He received half a dozen commendations from citizens and his supervisors.

Project 999, a nonprofit group that helps families of officers killed in the line of duty, announced Monday that it is establishing a fund in Robins’ memory to aid his family. Donations, made payable to Project 999, can be sent to the Orange County Sheriff’s Advisory Council at P.O. Box 241, Santa Ana, CA 92702.

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Times staff writers Len Hall and Tammerlin Drummond contributed to this report.