FBI Joins Shooting Probe : Police: Parents file claim countering LAPD assertion that youth provoked Lincoln Heights incident by drawing gun.

As the FBI announced that it has joined local law enforcement agencies investigating the fatal police shooting of a 14-year-old in Lincoln Heights, a wrongful death claim was filed Thursday by the youth’s parents.

The claim, filed on behalf of Maria Ana Gutierrez and Jose Rodriguez, accused Los Angeles police of shooting Jose Antonio Gutierrez on Saturday night “without cause, provocation or justification.” The filing of a wrongful death claim is generally a precursor to the filing of a lawsuit against the city.

“Given the fact that Michael A. Falvo, the LAPD officer who killed Jose Antonio Gutierrez, is one of the 44 problem officers listed by the Christopher Commission, the city of Los Angeles may be directly liable for the violation of civil rights in this case,” Antonio H. Rodriguez, the parents’ attorney, said at a morning news conference at the site of the slaying.

The claim also accuses officers of intentionally inflicting emotional distress on the victim’s mother. “Mrs. Gutierrez witnessed the killing of her son and was beaten by officers when she came to his aid,” Rodriguez said.

Police have said that Falvo shot Gutierrez four times in the upper torso after the boy pointed a semiautomatic pistol at him. The weapon, they said, was found in the grass on the other side of a small fence a few feet away. It contained no identifiable fingerprints.

The county coroner’s office has yet to release information on where the bullets hit Gutierrez. Coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier said Thursday that no specifics will be made public while the case remains under investigation for about seven to 10 days.

But attorney Rodriguez said Thursday that the youth was shot from the rear, which he said runs counter to the police version.

“If the officer shot him from behind, how could he be pointing a gun?” asked Rodriguez, who added that he examined the body Wednesday with a private pathologist, Richard Ziegler. “He was shot in the back,” Rodriquez said.

According to the lawyer, one bullet pierced the youth’s left armpit at an angle and exited through the upper right rib cage. The other three bullets pierced the back of Gutierrez’s left shoulder, he said. There was also what appeared to be a scrape from a bullet on the youth’s lower right back area, Rodriguez added.

Ziegler did not return a call for further explanation.

According to Carrier, the private report would have to have been conducted after the teen-ager’s body was released from the coroner’s office to an Eastside mortuary Wednesday. Carrier said he could not comment on the findings.

“The [official] documents have not been completed yet so there’s nothing I can confirm or deny,” Carrier said. “There’s nothing I can clarify at this time and there’s nothing we can add until the documents have been signed, completed and finalized by our department.”

Toxicology tests will determine whether there were drugs or alcohol in Gutierrez’s body, the coroner’s spokesman said.

The weekend slaying sparked two days of unrest in the Eastside neighborhood, heightening tension between some residents and the police. Some residents who say they witnessed the killing have disputed the police version, saying the officer fired on an unarmed Gutierrez, handcuffed him and shot him again. Others contend that Gutierrez did have a gun but that he tossed it over the fence when police arrived.

At this point, inquiries are being conducted by the LAPD’s robbery-homicide unit, the district attorney’s office, the FBI, attorney Rodriguez, the coroner’s office and the City Council.

The FBI launched its preliminary probe into allegations of civil rights violations Monday at the request of Department of Justice officials in Washington, said FBI spokesman John Hoos.

Results of the FBI’s study will be forwarded for review to the Justice Department’s civil rights division in Washington and the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, according to Hoos.

Federal officials in the 1994 fiscal year investigated about 2,230 cases of alleged civil rights violations nationwide by law enforcement officers, according to Justice Department statistics. That year, 34 federal cases were filed against 46 law enforcement officers, 12 defendants were convicted and 25 accepted plea agreements.

Rodriguez said he welcomed the FBI probe, considering what he termed the “dismal” record of the LAPD and district attorney’s office in investigating and prosecuting officers.

“That might be the only way this family gets a measure of justice,” he said.

County prosecutors said they have filed charges against law enforcement officers twice in the past five years as a result of on-duty shootings. Both prosecutions, one on manslaughter charges and the other for second-degree murder, resulted in mistrials when juries could not reach a verdict, spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.

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The City Council, which met in closed session with LAPD officials Wednesday morning, is due to reconvene its closed-door inquiry this morning. Councilman Mike Hernandez, who represents the area, has asked Police Chief Willie L. Williams to discuss the shooting and the LAPD’s efforts to increase safety in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood.

Williams, who was out of town when the shooting occurred, returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday but did not appear before the council, police authorities said, because he was still on vacation.

An LAPD spokesman confirmed Thursday that Williams will appear before the council today and update members on the investigation.

Intensifying the inquiry was the revelation Wednesday that the fatal shots were fired by Falvo, who is assigned to the department’s gang detail. The 12-year veteran was one of 44 officers referred to in the Christopher Commission report--prepared after the Rodney G. King beating--as having been the subject of six or more complaints of excessive force or improper behavior between 1986 and 1990.

The parents’ wrongful death claim states that the city is further liable in the case because Falvo “had a documented history of violent acts against community members and had demonstrated contempt for the residents of the Latino community to which he was assigned.”

Police Protective League Director Dennis Zine said he met with Falvo two hours after the shooting and insists that the officer fired only in self-defense.

“He feels remorse for the fact that he shot a 14-year-old boy,” Zine said. “It bothers him.”

But Zine said Falvo told him that “at the time he fired his weapon, the [youth’s] gun was pointed at him.”

Zine also dismissed suggestions that Falvo was too dangerous to patrol the streets.

“This was a simple matter of self-defense. I pledged to him that we are not going to let him be the next scapegoat for the LAPD.”

Zine said Falvo received the Police Star for saving a woman who was about to leap from a building with her 18-month-old child in 1986. He also was named officer of the year while working in the LAPD’s Wilshire Division.

The family’s claim did not list any monetary damages, but attorney Rodriguez said they would be substantial.

The city attorney’s office has six months to respond to the claim, either by denying it, which would send the case to court, or by negotiating a settlement.

A rosary service for the teen-ager, who was believed to be a member of a neighborhood gang, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Monday at Sacred Heart Church in Lincoln Heights.

Funeral services at the church are planned for 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.