Coroner Releases Autopsy on Youth Slain by Officer : Probe: Chief says report backs LAPD version of Lincoln Heights incident. But victim’s family disputes account.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams said an autopsy report released Friday supports LAPD accounts that a Lincoln Heights teen-ager was shot to death as he pointed a gun at a police officer, while the attorney for the youth’s family continued to dispute the police version of the shooting.

The coroner’s office report found that Jose Antonio Gutierrez, 14, was hit four times, with one shot striking him on the side, just under his left armpit and toward the front of his body. Two others, striking close to each other, hit Gutierrez in the left rear shoulder area. Another shot grazed Gutierrez on the back.

Coroner’s office spokesman Scott Carrier said Gutierrez was not shot directly in the back, as some Eastside police-abuse activists and the Gutierrez family attorney have maintained.

“We don’t want the public to think this young boy was completely turned around and shot in the back,” Carrier said.

The report was widely anticipated in the wake of the shooting death last weekend, which triggered disorder in the Eastside neighborhood and prompted city officials to question the LAPD’s practices and leadership.

The autopsy found no traces of gunpowder on Gutierrez’s body, “which would indicate that he was shot at a distance,” Carrier said. Some witnesses have said Gutierrez was shot after being handcuffed, and while he was lying face-down.

Instead, investigators said, the information suggests that the youth was shot, then hunched over and spun around by the force of the bullet.

After a two-hour private briefing of Los Angeles City Council members, Williams told reporters the coroner’s report was “consistent with being shot with a gun in your hand [and] having basically begun to turn.”

But Williams also found himself having to explain to council members why he was not in the city to personally take command of the LAPD after Gutierrez’s killing and why the officer involved in the shooting--cited in the 1991 Christopher Commission report as a “problem officer”--was still on the force.

Mayor Urges Calm

Meanwhile, Mayor Richard Riordan urged the public to await the final results of the LAPD probe of the matter and not assume that Officer Michael A. Falvo--because of his record--had acted improperly.

“It’s important that facts get out exactly as they were, but equally important . . . that we keep peace in the community. We should make this tragic incident the start of a healing process,” Riordan said at a late afternoon news conference.

The shooting prompted two days of street unrest by rock- and bottle-throwing youths last weekend and a tactical alert by the LAPD.

Still to come is a final report on the shooting by the LAPD’s officer-involved shooting team, an independent review of that report by the citizen-members of the Los Angeles Police Commission and an FBI investigation.

The LAPD has promised to expedite its own final report on the shooting.

Complicating the LAPD’s credibility in the incident has been the fact that Falvo, 39, was identified in the Christopher Commission report as one of 44 officers with a record of using excessive force.

But Williams said Falvo has had “no significant disciplinary history since 1991. . . . His history would indicate that his work habits have changed.”

Falvo, a gang unit officer, has been assigned to a desk job pending the outcome of the investigation, a standard practice.

“I have great confidence in the Police Department,” Riordan said as he urged full disclosure of the facts surrounding the shooting.

But Riordan also warned that outside, radical groups, “like the Brown Berets, the Communist Party and others” have been identified as trying to exploit the situation. These groups, the mayor contended, “have only one motive in mind--that is to rile up the people, and that is not in the best interest of Lincoln Heights or the city.”

Some community activists and observers have charged that Gutierrez was not, as police accounts have maintained, pointing a weapon at Falvo when he was shot four times. Police found a Tec-9 semi-automatic weapon near Gutierrez’s body, but subsequent tests found no identifiable fingerprints on the gun.

Another Side

Antonio Rodriguez, attorney for the Gutierrez family, said the autopsy squared with another interpretation of what happened after Falvo was summoned to a darkened Eastlake Avenue to check on a 911 call that a group of youths were handling a weapon.

“I don’t think the community is going to believe he was shot as he was spinning around,” Rodriguez said. “He was not armed. He was shot in the back.”

Rodriguez sarcastically compared the police account of Gutierrez spinning around upon being first shot, with the subsequent bullets striking him in the back and the gun flying out of his hands, to a Hollywood movie. “That happens in the movies a lot,” Rodriguez said.

“Most experts say if you’re shot holding a weapon . . . it will fall somewhere around the body,” he said. “In this case, we’re looking at a gun that was found by estimates 10 to 15 feet away, on the other side of a fence.”

According to diagrams and notes contained in the documents released by the coroner’s office, one bullet penetrated the back of the youth’s left shoulder, with a slightly upward trajectory.

Another bullet struck the same shoulder, an inch closer to his spine, passed through his body, and grazed his chin. A third bullet struck under his left arm, ripped through major organs at an upward angle, and exited the right side of his chest. A fourth bullet grazed the middle of his back, moving upward.

The report did not make a conclusion as to the order in which the bullets struck Gutierrez.

Information in the report about Gutierrez also contradicts comments made by his family, which insists that he was not in a gang. Gutierrez, who had several tattoos, on his finger, wrist and upper back, was found wearing a green knit glove on his left hand. It reads “LAKE” in “cryptic gang writing,” according to the coroner’s investigation. The gang based in the neighborhood in which the shooting occurred is called the “Eastlake Boys.”

A coroner’s spokesman said Gutierrez had “minuscule” traces of cocaine in his blood but added that he did not know when the youth had used the drug or whether he was under the influence when he died.

The youth, 5 feet, 3 inches and 110 pounds, was found lying on the sidewalk next to a short wall marking the boundary of a neighbor’s yard.

An account of the shooting given to a coroner’s investigator by two robbery/homicide detectives probing the incident claims “the officers ordered him to drop the weapon . . . he instead pointed at the officers.” Police spokesmen have said this week that Falvo did not have a chance to communicate before firing.

“We will probably want to look at that discrepancy,” Cmdr. Tim McBride said.

In addition, the account given to the coroner’s investigator indicates that Gutierrez was holding the fully loaded Tec-9 semiautomatic pistol with both hands. Police have not released statements of the officers who witnessed the shooting and have not disclosed how they believe Gutierrez was holding the weapon.

Police investigators are still trying to determine how the Tec-9 ended up a few feet away from Gutierrez, on the other side of a wall. They are looking into whether Gutierrez tried to fire the weapon or whether it might have jammed.

Williams Questioned

Councilman Mike Hernandez, in whose district the shooting occurred, continued to urge the LAPD to fully disclose its findings as soon as possible. “At least it should state that the guy was not lying on his front and shot in the back,” he said.

Several lawmakers, including Councilman Richard Alatorre, said they were troubled that Williams did not return immediately to the city from a vacation to personally oversee the volatile situation.

Williams told lawmakers he was in the Caribbean on vacation when he learned of the shooting and that it took him 25 hours to catch a return flight home, arriving in Los Angeles Wednesday at midmorning.

A controversial Police Commission performance report, obtained in May by The Times, criticized the chief for his work habits.

Council members such as Hernandez also questioned Williams about the status of the 44 officers identified in the Christopher Commission report. Hernandez said he expected a full report at a future meeting with the chief.

Responding to Riordan’s statement about troublemakers, David Cid, a Brown Beret member, said his group is a “registered nonprofit organization” but that an offshoot of the group is out to make trouble.

The other Brown Berets in Lincoln Heights “are just an organization trying to create disorder and division in the community,” Cid said. “They’re just a bunch of guys who have no solutions but just rant and rave.”

The original Brown Berets were organized in the late 1960s as part of the Chicano movement.

Times staff writers Robert J. Lopez and Jean Merl contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Lincoln Heights Shooting

Jose Antonio Gutierrez, 14, was shot and killed by Los Angeles Police Officer Michael A. Falvo on July 29. Police say Falvo acted properly because Gutierrez had pointed a semiautomatic pistol at the officer. The family, which has filed a wrongful death claim against the city, says Gutierrez was unarmed. The incident, which heightened tension in the community near Downtown, is being investigated by various law enforcement agencies.

WHAT POLICE SAY

Sequence of events, according to Los Angeles police officials:

* Officer Michael A. Falvo and two partners in a police car respond to a report that six or seven youths are passing around a gun on Eastlake Avenue at 9:40 p.m. Saturday.

* As they approach the intersection of Eastlake Avenue and George Street, the officers observe a teen-ager crossing the street and carrying a handgun at his side.

* Falvo, the driver, stops the police car to investigate.

* As Falvo opens the door, the youth raises the Tec-9 pistol and points it at the officer.

* Without having a chance to order the youth to stop, Falvo, with one foot out of the car door, fires six shots, hitting Gutierrez four times.

WHAT OTHERS SAY

* Neighborhood youths and residents say Gutierrez did, in fact, have a gun, but that he threw it over a fence when officers arrived.

* Seven people who say they witnessed the shooting told The Times that the youth was shot, handcuffed and shot again.

WHAT THE FAMILY SAYS

This is the response from Antonio Rodriguez, attorney for the Gutierrez’s family:

* Gutierrez was not armed and was not a threat to the officers when they arrived at the scene.

* The youth was carrying a flashlight in his hand when he was shot.

* Gutierrez was shot in the back, indicating that Falvo did not fire in self-defense.

POINTS OF CONTENTION

Officer Falvo:

Police: All shots fired from car

Witnesses: More shots after Gutierrez was handcuffed

*

Antonio Gutierrez:

Police: Had gun

Witnesses: Had gun

Family: Had flashlight

*

Gun found behind wall:

Police: Gun pointed at officers

Witnesses: Gun thrown over wall when police arrived

Family: Gutierrez was not armed

AUTOPSY REPORT

Jose Antonio Gutierrez was struck by four bullets, according to an autopsy released Friday. Two of the entry wounds--described in the autopsy report as fatal or potentially fatal--were in the upper left area of Gutierrez’s back, near his shoulder. Another bullet entered through his left side, in the area of his armpit, and passed through his body, producing wounds described in the report as fatal. The fourth bullet produced a grazing, nonfatal wound on Gutierrez’s left back.