U.S. Won’t Charge Ex-Deputy in Partner’s Death

The U.S. Justice Department declined to prosecute a former Orange County sheriff’s deputy for the lethal shooting of his partner after concluding the slaying was accidental and not motivated by race, according to investigative files released Wednesday.

“There is no evidence to indicate that this victim’s death resulted from anything other than a tragic accidental shooting,” the Justice Department concluded after reviewing the investigations of local law enforcement agencies.

Deputy Darryn Leroy Robins, who was black, was shot by Deputy Brian P. Scanlan, who is white, during an impromptu training exercise behind a Lake Forest movie theater on Christmas Day 1993.

The shooting rocked the Sheriff’s Department and outraged some civic leaders, especially when the Orange County Grand Jury declined to grant local prosecutors’ request to indict Scanlan on involuntary manslaughter charges.

The Justice Department’s conclusions contained in 23 pages of documents released Wednesday under the Freedom of Information Act--with the names of law enforcement witnesses and Scanlan extracted to protect their privacy--did nothing to satisfy local leaders who had called on the FBI to take over the case.

James Colquitt, president of the NAACP’s Orange County chapter, criticized the Justice Department’s reliance on reviewing the earlier investigative work of the district attorney’s office and sheriff’s officials rather than conducting a fresh and independent examination.

“They just reviewed what the sheriff said to make it short,” Colquitt said. “As long as you just line up all the sheriff’s witnesses, they are going to say the same thing.”

Lt. Ron Wilkerson, the Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said the files show “that this was a tragic accident, which is what we’ve said all along. This has been investigated by a number of agencies and media, and it’s pretty clear there is no conspiracy here.”

The Justice Department outlined the events leading up to the shooting, which occurred after the two deputies agreed to stage a traffic-stop exercise for a trainee.

With Robins playing the suspect inside a car and Scanlan the officer, Robins reached into a vehicle’s visor and drew a small pistol. Scanlan said he wasn’t expecting to see the gun, and accidentally fired his weapon at the 30-year-old Robins. Scanlan told investigators he wished he could have died in Robins’ place.

“Officers who were trained by or with [Scanlan] did not observe any careless or intentional misconduct on his part,” federal authorities wrote in summing up the case. “Also, officers who knew both [Scanlan] and Robins stated that they got along well and detected no racial animus on the part of [Scanlan].”

One law enforcement officer whom Scanlan trained said Scanlan was somewhat “macho” and occasionally made “ethnic comments.” The officer also said he heard Robins refer to Scanlan as a “cowboy” but added that he did not think the shooting was intentional or had to do with race.

The Justice Department inquiry--essentially an examination of the district attorney’s probe--began in April 1994, one month after the local grand jury declined to issue an indictment. A number of Orange County civil rights leaders wrote Atty. Gen. Janet Reno seeking a federal review.

Last August, the Justice Department announced it would not prosecute Scanlan but offered no details behind the decision. The county has settled a claim with Robins’ family, which would pay the family nearly $5 million over their lifetimes. Members of the Robins’ family did not return calls for comment Wednesday.

Scanlan, who now works as a private investigator in Arizona, said the Justice Department report was “fairly accurate” and hoped that it will end public scrutiny of the controversial shooting.

However, Scanlan said he was “shocked” to learn that investigators had been told that the shooting might not have been accidental. The allegation, made by an unidentified witness to a district attorney’s investigator, was never proven.

“That really shocked me, but there’s no way it could ever be corroborated because it wasn’t true,” he said.

Scanlan said he hoped the release of the federal report will “finally put this nightmare to rest.”

Randall Jordan, who publishes the Black Orange, the only black-oriented publication in Orange County, said he does not believe a thorough review of the case was ever conducted, though he is resigned to the fact that the case is closed.

“There’s nothing anyone can do, no higher power to appeal to,” he said. “Everyone has washed their hands of this issue.”

Times staff writer H.G. Reza contributed to this report. Martinez reported from Washington and Reza and Platte reported from Orange County.