Minority Leaders Seek U.S. Probe of Deputy’s Death : Reaction: Groups plan to ask for a civil rights inquiry into fatal shooting of black officer by a white colleague.

Representatives of several minority groups agreed Monday to ask for a federal investigation into the fatal shooting of Darryn Leroy Robins, a black sheriff’s deputy, by another officer during an impromptu training exercise in Lake Forest last year.

About 30 representatives of the Orange County NAACP, 100 Black Men of Orange County, Los Amigos and the League of United Latin American Citizens called for a federal grand jury investigation and agreed to ask the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to reconsider bringing charges.

“The justice system in Orange County has proven to be a system of injustice,” said Eugene M. Wheeler, president of 100 Black Men. “The Darryn Robins case has shown us that all are not equal under the law.”

Monday night’s meeting was called after the Orange County grand jury last week decided not to indict Deputy Brian P. Scanlan in the Christmas Day shooting.

Prosecutors had recommended that Scanlan be indicted on involuntary manslaughter charges, because his conduct was “not simply negligent, but . . . aggravated, reckless and grossly negligent,” according to a statement by Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi.

For those attending the meeting, the grand jury’s decision was not unexpected.

“I’m not surprised at all,” said Jim Colquitt, chairman of the Orange County chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. “The grand jury is a cop-out.”

Arguing that Robins’ death was a human rights violation, the group agreed that each leader of an organization present at the meeting would write to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno asking for an investigation. Those letters are to be mailed together in a packet on Wednesday.

In addition, 100 Black Men will ask to participate in the pending inquiry by a panel of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission into charges of institutionalized racism in Orange County.

The groups also voted to ask Amnesty International to investigate the shooting of 30-year-old Robins, again arguing that it constituted a human rights violation.

Most of those at the meeting were angry that it had taken two months for the grand jury to reach its conclusion and felt there was enough evidence to indict Scanlan, 32.

The grand jury made its decision after four days of closed hearings that began two weeks ago and included sworn testimony from 14 witnesses and the examination of 25 pieces of evidence that were offered by the district attorney’s office.

With only rare exceptions, grand juries follow the recommendations of prosecutors who bring potential criminal cases before them. But Deputy Dist. Atty. John D. Conley has called the Scanlan case a “close call” that could have gone either way.

An official account of the mishap was released for the first time last week following the grand jury’s decision.

Authorities say that Scanlan and Robins were running an impromptu training exercise behind a Lake Forest movie theater during a slow Christmas Day patrol.

According to the official account, Robins was playing the part of the driver in a car stop when, simulating a technique used by Los Angeles gang members, he reached for a small pistol hidden behind the sun visor of his patrol car to beat Scanlan to the draw.

Scanlan, who was holding a loaded gun in apparent violation of department training policy, was startled and fired, hitting Robins in the head.

Minority leaders acknowledge that they have no evidence that race played a part in the killing or in the way authorities handled it, and critics have accused the leaders of inflaming the issue with racial rhetoric.

But they insist that the slow release of public information and close relations between the Sheriff’s Department and the district attorney’s office have only fueled their communities’ suspicions of wrongdoing.