Feds Won’t Pursue Case on Officers : LAPD: Nine members of elite police unit won’t face civil rights charges. U. S. attorney’s office says there is insufficient evidence.

No civil rights charges will be filed against nine members of an elite Los Angeles Police Department unit for fatally shooting three robbers and wounding a fourth as they fled a holdup, federal authorities announced Monday.

In a brief written statement, the U. S. attorney’s office said that “after a thorough review,” it had concluded there was “insufficient evidence” to prove the police had violated federal civil rights laws when they opened fire on the four men in 1990.

The announcement effectively ended a federal grand jury probe of the incident, which spawned years of civil litigation. It was welcomed by police, who have endured years of scrutiny over the matter and lost a 1992 civil suit in which a federal jury found the deaths to be wrongful and awarded more than $44,000 in punitive damages to the slain men’s survivors.

“It’s a great weight off the officers’ shoulders after five years,” said Lt. William Hall, who oversees the department’s investigations of officer-involved shootings.

Hall, who concluded the Sunland shooting was justified, said he also felt personally vindicated by the federal government’s decision not to prosecute.

“I think our department did a very thorough job of evaluating it and the conclusions we came to were proper,” Hall said.

A spokesman for the officers union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said a prosecution of the nine officers, especially five years after the incident, would have discouraged police from aggressively fighting crime.

The nine SIS officers were Richard Spelman, James Tippings, Gary Strickland, Jerry Brooks, John Helms, Joe Callion, Warren Eggar, Richard Zierenberg and David Harrison.

“The government should not, in our opinion, be second-guessing officers whose mission is to apprehend armed robbers,” said Enrique (Hank) Hernandez, the League’s general counsel.

“It’s one thing to take issue with the department for having this type of unit. But to look at the conduct of individual officers would be counterproductive. It would not serve the community’s purpose,” Hernandez said.

The legal saga began on Feb. 12, 1990, as two dozen members of the LAPD’s Special Investigations Section surrounded a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland, watched an armed theft unfold inside, and, without intervening, waited for the robbers to emerge. For weeks, the SIS had been tracking the men, who were suspects in a series of holdups at fast food restaurants.

Police have always maintained that they wanted to arrest the men and were forced to open fire when the fleeing robbers aimed weapons at them. Killed in the barrage of shotgun and handgun blasts were Herbert Burgos, 27, Jesus Arango, 25, and Javier Trevino, 21.

The survivor, Alfredo Olivas, was later convicted of robbery and is serving a 17-year sentence in state prison at Pelican Bay.

The slain robbers’ relatives filed a federal lawsuit against the city and police, contending that the men had been shot unarmed as they were trapped in their getaway car and effectively ambushed by police. Olivas testified that they were only using air pistols, which had been locked in the trunk of their car.

The jury found the deaths to be wrongful and awarded $44,042 in punitive damages. In a rare gesture, the jury also asked that the police officers involved pay the money out of their own pockets, to teach them a lesson.

But the Los Angeles City Council voted to indemnify the officers, prompting a whole new lawsuit by Trevino’s young daughter, Johanna, who was born six days after his death.

The most unusual and controversial portion of Johanna Trevino’s suit claimed the council had helped foster a policy of police brutality by repeatedly paying punitive damages for sued officers. It sought to hold 10 council members personally liable for their votes, and had it been successful, would have been an unprecedented blow to the legal immunity usually granted to government figures for their official actions.

But U.S. District Court Judge J. Spencer Letts dismissed that portion of the suit. And on Friday, a federal court jury gave Johanna the minimum award of only $1 in compensatory damages for the loss of her father.

Another review of the shootings is still pending before the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, but a spokeswoman declined to comment Monday on when it would end.

Monday’s announcement only addressed civil rights violations, for which a statute of limitations ended Sunday--exactly five years after the fatal shootings.