Deputy Killed in Re-Enacted Theft : Shooting: Darryn Leroy Robins, bothered by an earlier CHP traffic stop in which he and other officers assisted, staged an impromptu training session in Lake Forest, officials say.

The apprehension of four car-theft suspects by the California Highway Patrol prompted an informal police training session that cost Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Darryn Leroy Robins his life at the hands of a fellow deputy, officials disclosed Tuesday.

Both Robins and Brian Scanlan, the deputy who fired the fatal bullet, assisted in the Christmas Day apprehension. But Robins was apparently bothered by the execution of the arrests and, less than an hour later, decided to stage a re-enactment at a mall parking lot to iron out procedural problems.

“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, said Lake Forest Mayor Marcia Rudolph.

But then something went tragically wrong.

While 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 familiar with the case.

Under this theory, Scanlan “got caught up in the heat of the moment and fired,” one source said. “He just wasn’t expecting the gun to be pointed at him.”

The details shed new light on a case that has prompted a district attorney’s investigation and drawn criticism over the Sheriff’s Department’s adherence to standard safety and training procedures. In other developments Tuesday:

* Court records showed that Scanlan is named along with several other sheriff’s deputies in a pending lawsuit alleging that they roughed up two South County residents outside a party.

* A member of Robins’ family said relatives are not planning to sue Orange County or the Sheriff’s Department over the fatality.

Laronda Magee, the victim’s sister, said county officials have treated the family--including Robins’ wife and and his 17-month-old daughter--with fairness and sensitivity. “We can’t be angry at the department for something one person did,” Magee said in an interview.

* 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 proven a critical and unanswered question in the case.

Among other rules in a 36-point document, the list stresses 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, and they refused to immediately release guidelines on how training sessions are supposed to be carried out and whether they can be conducted in public areas as was done Saturday.

* Conflicting portraits emerged of Scanlan, who fired the shot that killed Robins.

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 veteran patrol officer, he’s a field training officer for the department, and he’s a very highly rated and respected deputy.” He thought Scanlan had been with the department about eight years and said he knew of no disciplinary action against him.

But court records show that Scanlan was notified in May, 1992, that the Orange County District Attorney’s office was seeking to have child support payments taken directly from his paycheck after he fell $10,850 behind in payments, according to court records. He was divorced in 1986 but told the court he could not afford $500 in support payments for two children.

In another legal case 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. Trial is set for February.

The lawsuit 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.”

And the plaintiffs also alleged that the deputies conspired to file false reports that resulted in plaintiff Jose Bernal, 20, being charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Bernal eventually pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace, according to the suit.

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 San Juan Boys, sensing an easy mark, attacked” and were later “properly subdued” by on-duty officers who arrived at the scene, according to documents filed by the deputies’ lawyers.

According to the plaintiffs’ suit, several off-duty deputies were attending the party while Bernal and co-plaintiff Shawn Choate, 19, along with 17-year-old Albert Vallardares, who is not a party to the suit, were visiting someone across the street.

After a dispute, Vallardares challenged off-duty Deputy Patrick Higa to a fight and broke the deputy’s car window, the lawsuit says. Choate and Bernal tried to stay out of the way, according to their lawsuit, but were pursued by a “cavalry” of deputies, including Scanlan and Higa.

Choate was kicked and had his head bashed into the pavement and passed out, according to the suit, while Bernal was allegedly beaten with a metal pipe. It was not clear which defendants beat which plaintiff, according to the lawsuit, but neighbors phoned in eight calls for assistance.

One of the deputies admitted taking pictures of the bloodied men for amusement, the lawsuit claims.

Scanlan could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and MacLeod of the sheriff’s association said he could not comment on whether the association is providing legal counsel. The attorney who is representing Scanlan in the beating lawsuit also could not be reached for comment.

Authorities would release few new details Tuesday about the Robins shooting.

In its first official statement on the shooting, the district attorney’s office--which reviews all officer-involved shootings to determine whether criminal charges should be filed--said only that “its investigation is continuing.”

The press release confirmed the time and place of the shooting, as well as the two deputies involved, but said that “despite the great public interest in the death of Deputy Robins, it is the standard practice that details concerning an investigation are not released until the investigation is completed. Release of the information prematurely may affect the recollection of witnesses and jeopardize the integrity of the investigation.”

The shooting has sparked a slew of questions and criticism from local community leaders and some law-enforcement experts in recent days, centering on the issue of why deputies were training with a loaded gun and why such training was conducted in public. Many of those questions persisted Tuesday as debate about the incident intensified.

“I can understand that it’s a valid exercise, but with live ammunition . . . Great Scott!” said Laguna Niguel Mayor Janet Godfrey.

Laguna Niguel City Councilman Mark Goodman said he thought it was “obvious we need some answers” to such questions. As for public training sessions, he said: “There probably needs to be a review of that particular practice.”

Lake Forest Mayor Rudolph said the deputies appear to have picked the mall parking lot for their impromptu training session simply as a matter of convenience. She said that they were called to investigate a report of a burglary at the Twin Peaks Plaza shopping center and, after determining that it was a false alarm, decided to re-enact the CHP car stop behind the mall movie theater.

Mission Viejo City Councilman Joseph D. Lowe, who is also a captain in the Sheriff’s Department, said he is withholding judgment on the incident.

“When something like this happens, there is just so much hearsay,” Lowe said. “I’m not going to do something until there is a full investigation of the facts. When I see them, I’ll make a judgment.”

And MacLeod of the sheriff’s association said “there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation. The deputy could have been unloading the weapon and it discharged, or he could have been putting it away and it went off, and until the (district attorney’s) investigation is complete, any conclusions are premature.”

One unresolved question in the case centers on the CHP stop that apparently prompted the training session. It is still unclear what may have bothered Robins about the stop.

CHP Officer Todd Wise, who initiated the arrests, said that the sheriff’s deputies played only a backup role and that “it was a very successful stop.”

The incident began when Wise noticed a carload of four youths at a gas station on El Toro Road, all acting nervously. “They stared at me as if ‘I hope he leaves.’ And they appeared kind of young, so I just wanted to run a quick check on the car,” he said.

It turned out the car was stolen from San Jose, Wise said, so he followed the youths--without turning on his siren or giving chase--as they drove up the Santa Ana Freeway toward the El Toro “Y” junction with the San Diego Freeway. Once two other CHP units had arrived for backup, he turned on his flashing lights and made the stop. The stop came at 1:15 p.m. Saturday near the Irvine Center Drive exit of the northbound San Diego Freeway.

Within a few minutes, sheriff’s deputies arrived to provide additional backup, although CHP had not requested assistance, Wise said. One deputy held a shotgun on the car, while others closed off the freeway.

Among them were Robins and Scanlan and at least one deputy who was new to the beat, said CHP Officer Peter Gustafson, who also assisted in the stop.

Gustafson said he spoke with Scanlan after the four youths were arrested, and that he noticed nothing unusual about the procedures used in the stop. “But it might have been just the fact that it was the trainee’s first felony stop so they decided to critique it afterward,” he said. “No one really knows what happened after that, but obviously everyone’s pretty upset about it. It’s just a tragedy.”

Robins’ funeral will be at 10 a.m. Friday at the First Church of God, 9550 Crenshaw Blvd., Inglewood, with burial following in the Green Hills Mortuary, 27501 S. Western Ave., Rancho Palos Verdes.

In lieu of flowers, family members have asked that donations be made in Robins’ memory to: Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, 4650 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90027; Children’s Hospital of Orange County, 455 S. Main St., Orange, Calif. 92668; or to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, at 17992 Mitchell, Suite 101, Irvine, Calif. 92714 or 121 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 310, Los Angeles, Calif. 90025.

Times staff writers Leslie Berkman, Alicia DiRado, Greg Hernandez, Dave Lesher, Mark Platte and Jodi Wilgoren contributed to this report, along with correspondents Geoff Boucher, Richard Core and Frank Messina.