Officer Who Shot Boy Was ‘Problem’ Cop : LAPD: As City Council opens inquiry into Lincoln Heights killing, it is announced that Michael A. Falvo was on Christopher Commission list of 44 policemen who had history of alleged brutality incidents.

As the Los Angeles City Council opened its inquiry into the fatal wounding of a Lincoln Heights teen-ager, police on Wednesday identified the anti-gang officer who fired the shots as Michael A. Falvo, one of the 44 “problem officers” cited in the Christopher Commission report on Police Department operations.

The disclosure that Falvo was the shooter stunned the council members, who were briefed in closed session by LAPD brass about the Saturday night incident, Councilman Mike Hernandez said. They “were shocked,” he said. “They realize that we’ve got a problem.”

Police officials, however, continued to maintain that the officer acted properly, firing only after the 14-year-old youth pointed a gun at Falvo.

And Robin Kramer, chief of staff to Mayor Richard Riordan, said, “The focus should be on the facts” of the shooting, not on Flavo’s record.

The slaying sparked two days of unrest in the Eastside neighborhood and has heightened tensions between some residents and the police.

Hernandez, who represents the area, urged the Police Department to expedite its official probe of the death to accelerate the “process for healing.” But he also said the latest disclosure only makes efforts to keep the peace more difficult. “I am concerned about the potential flare-ups,” he said.

In addition, the Eastside councilman said he was angry that Assistant Chief Ron Banks, in the closed session, identified Falvo as having been one of the 44 “problem officers” only in response to Hernandez’s question.

Police say Falvo shot Antonio Gutierrez four times in the upper torso after the boy pointed a semiautomatic pistol at the officer, who was responding to a report that several youths were passing around a handgun. But police disclosed Wednesday that there were no identifiable fingerprints on the gun the youth allegedly pointed.

Some residents who say they witnessed the killing have sharply disputed the LAPD’s version, saying the officer fired on an unarmed Gutierrez, handcuffed him and shot him again. Others say that Gutierrez did have a gun but that he tossed it over a fence when police arrived.

Falvo, 39, a 12-year-veteran, was referred to in the Christopher Commission report as among officers who had been subjects of six or more complaints of excessive force or improper behavior each between 1986 and 1990. The report was commissioned to review LAPD policies and practices after the beating of Rodney G. King.

According to transcripts of disciplinary hearings reviewed by The Times in 1992, Falvo had a history of alleged brutality and insensitive behavior dating back at least eight years:

* In 1991, a police Board of Rights unanimously concluded that Falvo flashed offensive hand gestures at residents of an Eastside housing project who were outraged that a sheriff’s deputy had killed a man there the night before.

“Your actions were so egregious, so inflammatory, so unthinking and so likely to result in serious consequences, that this single incident requires the most severe of penalties,” an LAPD commander told Falvo during the disciplinary hearing.

The disciplinary board strongly recommended that Falvo be fired; but then-Chief Daryl F. Gates, in one of his last personnel actions as chief, reduced the penalty to a 44-day suspension.

The penalty, according to court documents, was overturned by a Superior Court judge in 1993, who ruled that the evidence against Falvo was insufficient. The judge ordered the city to change Falvo’s personnel file and to reimburse him for back pay and court costs.

* In 1989, Falvo pleaded guilty in a Board of Rights hearing to unnecessarily kicking a man, then omitting the incident from subsequent police reports. He received a 20-day suspension.

* In 1987, a disciplinary board found Falvo guilty of striking two narcotics suspects with his baton while they were kneeling in front of him, their hands behind their heads. One of the suspects later said Falvo “started beating us like we were animals or something.” The officer received a 22-day suspension.

Falvo was unavailable for comment Wednesday. A lieutenant at the Hollenbeck Division, where Falvo has been temporarily assigned to a desk job pending the outcome of a police investigation into the shooting, declined to let the officer come to the telephone.

Police spokesman Cmdr. Tim McBride said Falvo’s recent record has been free of problems. Falvo has undergone counseling and additional training since being found guilty of using excessive force and was pronounced fit for duty by a police board in 1992, McBride said.

He said that he did not know how many of the 44 officers cited by the Christopher Commission are still with the LAPD, but that they all have been retrained.

Hernandez questioned why Falvo is still on the force. “I don’t understand why he was in the field in the first place,” the councilman said.

Hernandez said he asked Police Chief Willie L. Williams to report to the council Friday to discuss the shooting and the LAPD’s efforts to increase safety in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood. Williams returned Wednesday from out of town and was still on vacation, Banks said.

“I’m willing to state that I think the credibility of the Police Department is on the line as much as it was when we had the Christopher Commission,” Hernandez said. “And the chief has to deal with this, and his credibility is on the line.”

Hernandez said he was also unhappy that the LAPD did not quickly notify him of the shooting or inform him about plans to put a tactical alert in place over the weekend.

He added, however, that he continues to believe that, overall, the department acted properly in its response to two days of rock- and bottle-throwing at officers.

McBride said police officials are expediting their probe of the shooting, but he declined to say when it would be completed.

“We know that this is clearly something of tremendous public interest,” he said. “We are doing it as fast as we can.”

He said an analysis of the fully loaded 32-shot Tec-9 semiautomatic pistol recovered in the grass a few feet from the shooting shows there were no fingerprints of “identifiable quality” on the weapon. He said that was not an unusual finding, noting that fingerprints are often hard to obtain.

*

Asked how the gun ended up on the other side of a four-foot concrete wall, McBride said: “That is not uncommon, for people to be moving at the time when they encounter police.” Investigators will try to determine whether the gun was thrown over the fence, he said.

Earlier, moments after the closed session of the City Council broke up, Banks briefly answered questions from reporters.

He said Falvo’s record does not necessarily mean that he should not have been assigned to the busy anti-gang unit that covers the LAPD’s turbulent Hollenbeck area.

“Obviously,” Banks said, “this will be looked at very closely, as well as other situations that we might find ourselves in in a similar vein.”

Hernandez announced that a community meeting originally scheduled for Wednesday night at Lincoln High School to discuss the shooting had been canceled.

He said he feared that the meeting, instead of providing an opportunity to quiet nerves, would only “fan the flames” being spread by some community activists who believe Eastside residents have been the victims of police abuses.

But at an afternoon news conference, community leaders said they wanted to hold smaller meetings with residents. They voiced optimism that the meetings would begin a healing process but acknowledged that police have a long way to go in building bridges with the community.

“Much is being said, and much is being done,” said Father Juan Santillan, a respected community leader and police liaison. “But for us as a community, this will put to a test community policing.”

Times staff writer Paul Feldman contributed to this story.