Arrest Re-Enactment Led to Deputy’s Death : Police: Officer who fired fatal shot was trying to solve procedural problems, officials say.

The arrest of four car theft suspects by the California Highway Patrol prompted an informal police training session that cost an Orange County sheriff’s deputy his life at the hands of a fellow deputy, officials disclosed Tuesday.

The slain deputy, Darryn Leroy Robins, and the deputy who fired the fatal shot, Brian Scanlan, had assisted in the Christmas Day arrests. But Robins was apparently bothered by the execution of the arrest and less than an hour later decided to stage a re-enactment at a mall parking lot to iron out procedural problems, officials said.

“Deputy Robins had some method to offer the other officers (that) he felt might make their response safer. . . . I think he was thinking there might have been a better way” to handle the freeway stop, Lake Forest Mayor Marcia Rudolph said.

But then something went wrong.

Although authorities continued their refusal to comment in any detail, investigators appear to be focusing on the possibility that Robins, 30, playing the part of the driver in the “hot stop,” surprised Scanlan, 32, by reaching for a gun from the visor of his patrol car, said law enforcement sources who are familiar with the case.

Under this theory, Scanlan “got caught up in the heat of the moment and fired,” one source said.

The details shed new light on a case that has prompted an investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office. In other developments Tuesday:

The Sheriff’s Department released for the first time since the shooting a list of firearms training safety rules that spell out wide-ranging restrictions on the use of guns. The issue of why the deputies were training with a loaded gun has proved to be a critical and unanswered question in the case.

Among other rules in a 36-point document, the list emphasizes that an officer should “ never assume a weapon is unloaded--always check . . . never point a loaded or unloaded pistol at anything or anyone you do not intend to shoot, (and) don’t point (a firearm) in an unsafe direction where an accidental discharge may do harm.”

But sheriff’s officials did not return repeated telephone calls seeking elaboration on the firearms rules.

Also, conflicting portraits emerged of Scanlan. Sheriff’s officials have refused to release any information on Scanlan other than his name. Robert MacLeod, general manager of the Orange County Deputy Sheriffs Assn., said that Scanlan is a “very highly rated and respected deputy.” He said he knew of no disciplinary action against him.

But in a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court, Scanlan and several other sheriff’s deputies are accused of beating two men with bricks and metal pipes outside a birthday party at Scanlan’s Dana Point home.

The lawsuit, scheduled for trial in February, alleges that the deputies involved in the case had extensive histories of misconduct and that the county should have known that Scanlan and the other defendants had “demonstrated propensity” for “racial bigotry, violence, harassment.”

Attorneys for the deputies, however, say the officers tried to fend off a challenge by the young men, who were members of the San Juan Boys gang.

The young men were visiting someone across the street before the fight occurred, authorities said.