Sheriff Will Fight Return of 5 Deputies : Law enforcement: Sherman Block says he will go to court to bar the reinstatement of officers involved in fatal shooting and beating of a suspect.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said he will go to court to try to block the reinstatement of five deputies who were dismissed two years ago for their involvement in the fatal shooting and beating of a suspected kidnaper.

In a letter to the Board of Supervisors released this week, Block said he intends to petition the Superior Court to review decisions made by the county Civil Service Commission. In May, in two separate decisions, the commission ruled that the dismissals were not justified and that the deputies should be reinstated.

“I discharged these deputies for their unprofessional conduct and for showing their willingness to engage in a subterfuge to avoid sanction,” Block said. “I believe the commission’s decision to grant four separate hearings in this matter . . . and the time frames in which the commission claims to have read the records, prior to rendering their final decision, cause concern that a thorough review may not have occurred.”

Block will ask the supervisors at their regular board meeting Tuesday to approve the use of county counsel to represent the department in the court action.

The commission’s May rulings are among a series of reversals of departmental firings that have raised concerns about the progress of reforms recommended two years ago after an inquiry found a troubling pattern of officer-involved shootings and excessive use of force.

The inquiry, headed by retired Superior Court Judge James G. Kolts, also suggested that there is not enough accountability or discipline at higher levels of the department.

Sheriff’s officials, however, contend that the Civil Service Commission has hampered their efforts to implement reforms and fire problem officers by improperly reversing disciplinary decisions.

No representatives of the commission were available Friday to respond. The commission ruled 3 to 2 in May to accept the recommendations of two hearing officers to reinstate Deputies Jason Mann, Thomas Brownell, Timothy Anderson, Douglas Gillies and Timothy Running.

A Sheriff’s Department spokesman said Friday that the five deputies will not be allowed back on the job pending the outcome of the department’s court appeal.

Merrick J. Bobb, an attorney hired by the Board of Supervisors to monitor implementation of the Kolts recommendations, said he is concerned about the commission’s reversals of departmental firings.

But Bobb said the numbers are not so stark that he can draw any conclusions about whether the commission is biased in favor of deputies.

In an April report on the Kolts reforms, Bobb determined that the commission has reversed 27% of the force-related firings it reviewed. The findings reflect appeals brought to the commission from 1992 to April 1 of this year.

The number is actually a significant decrease from a previous review, which found a 53% reversal rate.

“Before I am able to draw any firm or final conclusion I need a better understanding about whether the quality of the department’s investigation is as high as it should be,” Bobb said.

None of the five deputies could be reached for comment. But their attorney, Richard Shinee, called the planned court appeal a “waste of taxpayer’s money.”

“It was a sloppily done investigation that reached a completely erroneous conclusion . . . and now they are trying to save face by taking this to court,” said Shinee, whose law firm represents the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs.

Shinee said he will pursue his own court action to have the five deputies reinstated. He said his clients were “ecstatic and happy” at the Civil Service Commission decision “because their conduct has been vindicated and their names have been cleared.”

A total of seven deputies were fired for their actions in the death of 32-year-old suspected robber and kidnaper Arthur Jones after a high-speed chase.

The March, 1990, incident was one of several controversial shootings of black or Latino suspects over the course of several months that sparked community protest and allegations of undue use of force by sheriff’s deputies.

The shootings resulted in the creation of the Kolts inquiry, which in its 1992 report found a deeply disturbing pattern of excessive force and brutality by deputies. It cited the Jones incident--although not by name--as an example. The panel also said there had been significant underreporting of the force used in the case.

In the Jones case, the suspect was allegedly seen by deputies robbing and kidnaping a man at gunpoint in Compton. A 15-minute chase ensued, in which deputies fired at Jones as he crashed through blockades, traveled the wrong way on Artesia Boulevard, and threw a shotgun and his kidnaping victim out of the car.

Somewhere along the way, he was hit by a bullet that struck his face. Jones was finally stopped when pursuing deputies shot out the tires of his car. He emerged with his hands raised but deputies struck him several times after he allegedly resisted being taken into custody.

A coroner’s report concluded that the beating was so severe that it might have killed him had he not already been wounded by the gunshot. Jones died three days later.

An internal sheriff’s investigation determined that the deputies breached various departmental regulations.

The Civil Service Commission sustained only one allegation, the finding that Mann violated policy when he failed to notify superiors that he was joining the pursuit and that he may have violated policy by reloading his weapon prior to an investigation of the incident.

But the commission concluded that a written reprimand, not dismissal, was the appropriate discipline.