Officers Target of Inquiry in Holdup Deaths

At least seven Los Angeles police officers who took part in a fatal 1990 shooting in Sunland have received notice that they are targets of a federal grand jury reviewing the incident for possible civil-rights violations, sources said Thursday.

Police and legal sources said the so-called “target letters” are a strong sign that criminal indictments could be issued before a five-year statute of limitations ends Feb. 12, the anniversary of the incident outside a McDonald’s restaurant.

The target letters invite the officers to appear before the grand jury and give their accounts of the shooting, which killed three men and wounded a fourth as they fled an alleged holdup. But unlike subpoenaed witnesses, a probe’s targets cannot be compelled to testify.

The officers who received target letters last week include seven “shooters” who fired on the alleged robbers as they left the restaurant, sources said. Two detective supervisors involved in the incident had not received target letters as of Thursday, they said.

All nine officers were members of an elite and controversial unit known as the Special Investigations Section or SIS, which had been tracking a series of restaurant holdups and watched from outside the Sunland McDonald’s as the men allegedly held a lone employee at gunpoint.

Sources declined to name the targets Thursday. The officers involved in the shooting have previously been identified as Richard Spelman, James Tippings, Gary Strickland, Jerry Brooks, John Helms, Joe Callian, Warren Eggar, Richard Zierenberg and David Harrison. All were described as veterans with an average of 19 years’ experience at the time of the shooting.

Mark Beck, one lawyer representing a target, said he hoped to persuade federal prosecutors that his client and the other officers had acted “in a way that was consistent with their sworn duty, that they were not deserving of punishment of any sort for the actions that took place.”

“We are still confident they will come to their senses,” Beck said, in reference to prosecutors.

A federal probe of the incident has been quietly pending for some time, sources said, but was recently reactivated to meet the deadline for filing civil-rights violations. Subpoenaed witnesses have included former and current SIS members; detectives with the Robbery Homicide Division, which conducted the original investigation of the restaurant robberies; and detectives who review officer-involved shootings.

Another witness has been Alfredo Olivas, the shooting’s sole survivor. Now 24 and serving a 17-year sentence for the restaurant robberies, Olivas was brought to U. S. District Court in Los Angeles from the state prison at Pelican Bay to testify before the grand jury.

Another source said the targets are the same officers who were named as defendants in a civil, excessive-force suit filed by the slain men’s families. After a three-month trial, a federal court jury awarded more than $44,000 to the plaintiffs--and in an unusual gesture, specified that the police pay the damages out of their own pockets rather than have the city cover the judgments.

Another civil case stemming from the incident was filed after the Los Angeles City Council voted to indemnify the officers anyway. That suit--filed on behalf of the 4-year-old daughter of one of the slain men--charges that the City Council fostered a policy of police brutality by covering such judgments and seeks to hold council members personally liable for their actions. It is scheduled to begin trial next month in federal court.

The Los Angeles district attorney’s office also has an open, and “active,” investigation into the shooting although no charges have been brought, a spokeswoman said.