MONTEREY PARK : Lawyer for Youth in Taped Police Beating Arrested

Attorney Humberto Guizar, who represents a teen-ager who was beaten by a Compton police officer, was arrested Friday on suspicion of carrying a loaded gun into a county courthouse in Monterey Park, said Sgt. John Vann of the Los Angeles County safety police.

“He was passing through the metal detector and one of the county guards detected a .25-(caliber) semiautomatic gun inside his briefcase,” Vann said. “He said he didn’t know it was there.”

Guizar was taken to the Monterey Park police station and booked on a charge of unlawful possession of a handgun in a public building, Police Lt. William Yeung said. He remained in custody Friday night, with bail set at about $15,000, Yeung said.

Guizar is the attorney for 17-year-old Felipe Soltero, whose beating by a Compton police officer July 29 touched off protests and heightened tensions between blacks and Latinos. A neighbor of Soltero’s videotaped the incident, and Guizar became a key figure in the controversy when a grand jury ordered him to turn over a copy of the tape to assist in its investigation of the incident.

Soltero was knocked to the ground and suffered a concussion and an injured left elbow, causing partial numbness in his hand, Guizar told reporters at the time.