L.A. Police Denounce Article on Fatal Shooting : Violence: Story claiming bullets were found beneath body of woman killed on rooftop is called ‘reprehensible.’

The Los Angeles Police Department on Friday denounced reporting by a local newspaper chain as “reckless and reprehensible” and said the publication had printed incorrect information about the Dec. 16 shooting of a woman by LAPD officers.

The San Gabriel Valley Newspapers, based in West Covina, reported this week that investigators had discovered “as many as four 9 mm bullets” beneath the fallen body of Sonji Danese Taylor, a 27-year-old woman shot on a hospital rooftop.

In the article, the papers reported that Cyril Wecht, a renowned forensic pathologist from Pittsburgh, had said that “four bullets under Taylor’s body would indicate she was shot while lying down.”

The LAPD, which generally refrains from commenting about ongoing investigations, issued a press release denying the reports.

“It has been reported that four mushroomed bullets were discovered beneath Taylor’s body, suggesting that she had been shot in the back four times while lying on the ground,” the LAPD press release stated. “That report is factually incorrect, as no such evidence exists. It should be noted that (the) reporters chose to proceed with this report despite being advised by members of the Los Angeles Police Department that their speculation was factually incorrect.”

Sources told the Los Angeles Times that although one slug was found in Taylor’s clothing, none was found on the ground beneath her. Wecht, when interviewed by The Times, stressed that his conclusion that Taylor was shot while lying on the ground was based on information supplied to him by a reporter from the Valley Newspapers, not on official investigative documents. The documents do not indicate what position Taylor was in when she was shot, Wecht said.

Hope Frazier, editor of the three San Gabriel Valley newspapers, defended the story. “I stand by every word we wrote,” she said. “The context in the story is more than careful and more than accurate.”

Frazier said the article was the product of painstaking work by reporters and editors. “I think we’ve done a hell of a good job,” she said.

As the unusually public fracas indicated, the Taylor case is an enormously sensitive subject for the LAPD, in part because it has reminded many observers of the 1979 shooting of Eulia Love, who was fatally wounded by LAPD officers.

The LAPD, Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the FBI are probing the Taylor shooting. Among other things, their inquiries are attempting to determine why two officers fired so many shots--nine in all--and why seven struck Taylor in the back.

Of the shots fired by Sgt. Michael Long and Officer Craig Liedahl, four were recovered from Taylor’s body, according to the coroner’s report.

Another was found in her clothing, the report said. The report makes no mention of any bullets found on the ground beneath her, nor does it explain what happened to the other four slugs. Sources close to the case say investigators have focused most of their attention on a shot to the back of Taylor’s left shoulder. That bullet was “mushroomed,” or flattened out. Mushrooming could have been caused by that bullet hitting a bone, but it also could indicate that Taylor was shot while on the ground, the sources said.

At a news conference Friday, Taylor’s mother, Geri Dixon, said she believes that police officers killed her daughter without justification. “I think she was just killed because she was a black woman,” Dixon said.