Officer Passes Polygraph on Gunplay

The lawyer for Ted S. Teyechea, one of two Los Angeles police officers accused of firing at a California Highway Patrol officer during a drunken shooting spree last week, said Monday that Teyechea passed a lie detector test when he denied shooting his gun at the officer or anyone else.

Teyechea and Michael V. Herrera were arrested Wednesday after they allegedly fired at a CHP officer who had stopped to write a motorist a ticket. The two off-duty LAPD officers reportedly had been drinking earlier that day, and investigators later determined that they had fired at least nine shots between them.

The policemen were booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, but Barry Levin, the lawyer who represents Teyechea, said Monday that his client was shown to be “conclusively truthful” when he denied shooting at the CHP officer or others.

“Ted is being accused of a crime he did not commit,” Levin said in an interview with reporters from The Times and Channel 11 TV news. “There is no way that a man of Officer Teyechea’s background would ever, ever commit the crime of shooting at a police officer.”

An official with Intercept Inc., which administered the test, confirmed Levin’s account of the results. Teyechea recorded a score of 19 in response to four questions probing whether he pointed his weapon at a CHP officer or anyone else and whether he fired his weapon at an officer or any other person. A score of six or higher indicates that a person has answered truthfully, the company official said.

According to LAPD sources, Teyechea and Herrera have told friends that they were shooting at street signs and never saw the CHP officer during the Wednesday afternoon incident, which prompted an embarrassed Police Chief Willie L. Williams to forcefully distance the LAPD from the two men.

If found guilty of drinking and shooting at signs, Teyechea and Herrera could still lose their jobs, but the criminal penalties would be far less severe than if they were convicted of assaulting a peace officer.

Levin would not comment about whether his client had been drinking or shooting his gun, but he did say that Teyechea had not been questioned about those topics by the polygraph expert.

The crime of assaulting a peace officer with a deadly weapon carries a possible prison sentence of five, seven or nine years, while other possible charges such as attempted murder of a peace officer could carry as much as a life in prison sentence. On the other hand, illegal discharge of a weapon, a logical charge if they did not intend to harm anyone, could result in less than a year in custody.