Audiotape of Beating Sparks New Inquiry

The disclosure that a California Highway Patrol officer secretly tape-recorded a beating by Riverside County sheriff’s deputies has rocked the investigations of the incident and opened a new line of inquiry, with authorities now attempting to identify another officer caught using a racial epithet.

On the tape, which Officer Marco DeGennaro recorded without the knowledge of other officers at the scene, Riverside deputies can be heard shouting to the Mexican immigrants, “Get down!” and “Get on the ground!” but those commands are given in English. The only Spanish-language orders are given after blows have knocked suspects to the ground. DeGennaro is heard later remarking to a supervisor that the deputies “were whaling on those guys,” a statement that investigators have asked him to elaborate upon in interviews.

Lawyers for the two deputies, Tracy Watson and Kurt Franklin, said the audiotapes should exonerate their clients of wrongdoing by making it clear that they were attempting to get criminal suspects to comply with their orders. But lawyers for one of the people struck by the deputies, Alicia Sotero Vasquez, say the failure of the deputies to give understandable orders to Spanish-speaking suspects and DeGennaro’s characterization of the beating as “whaling” will help demonstrate that the force used by the deputies was excessive and unjustified.

Because the audiotape complements a video shot by circling news helicopters and because it records the voices and impressions of officers at the scene, it has already emerged as a key piece of evidence in the expanding investigation of the incident. Moreover, it has generated new lines of inquiry, including a search for an officer who can clearly be heard uttering an ethnic slur.

On the tape, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, DeGennaro is heard running after one of the illegal immigrants who bailed out of the pickup truck alongside the Pomona Freeway at the end of a long, harrowing chase. After running that person down, DeGennaro is heard making a series of radio calls and talking to people at the scene.

After a few moments, DeGennaro, still breathing heavily, was addressed by an unidentified person. DeGennaro referred to him as “sir,” and that person asked DeGennaro about a cut he had received. That person then remarked: “Bunch of wetbacks, huh?”

DeGennaro did not balk at that comment and even indicated agreement with it, although his exact words are difficult to discern in the sometimes scratchy tape. DeGennaro did not repeat the slur, however.

According to Harland W. Braun, the lawyer who represents DeGennaro, his client was questioned about that comment by investigators who are eager to determine whether it came from Watson or Franklin. DeGennaro could not say for sure who made the comment, Braun said, but emphasized that he was positive that it did not come from either deputy and instead that he believed it was another CHP officer.

“My client doesn’t know who that was,” Braun said. “They asked him about it, but he couldn’t identify him.”

Lawyers for the two deputies expressed relief that DeGennaro had ruled out their clients as possible sources of the remark, and Braun said DeGennaro regrets that it was captured on tape at all.

“The tape recorder was only on for the stop, but he forgot to turn it off,” Braun said. “He’s a young officer, and he wouldn’t have said that, but he wasn’t trying to tape other officers.”

For the CHP, the latest turn of events represented a potentially embarrassing development in an otherwise widely praised highway patrol performance. And for critics of the law enforcement activity at the scene of the incident, the use of the slur reinforced concerns that at least some officers saw the confrontation in racial terms.

“The amazing part of this case,” said Dan Stormer of Hadsell & Stormer, one of Sotero’s lawyers, “is the racial haze that is over it.”

The use of the epithet, Stormer said, added to that dimension even if it did not directly implicate either of the deputies.

Peter A. Schey, a civil rights attorney who represents two other alleged beating victims, was not immediately available for comment. A spokesman for the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department declined to comment on the audiotape or its potential significance.

DeGennaro’s actions at the scene--he arrested one person without using force and went to help arrest others and to try to signal to the people being beaten that they should drop to the ground--won him praise from experts on use of force who reviewed the videotape.

In fact, those experts contrasted DeGennaro’s actions with those of the deputies in order to suggest that the deputies overreacted. DeGennaro’s ability to bring one suspect under control without force, they said, demonstrates that the deputies could have done the same.

Because the standard for judging a police officer’s actions during a use of force is how a reasonable officer would have acted under such circumstances, DeGennaro’s decision not to use force against the suspect he arrested could prove damaging to the deputies if criminal charges ever are brought.

On Tuesday, Highway Patrol Chief Edward W. Gomez, who commands the Los Angeles-area region of the agency, echoed praise for DeGennaro, whose actions the chief said were emblematic of the patrol’s overall commendable response. Gomez, while emphasizing that he does not yet know whether the racial slur was uttered by one of his officers, said it would be unfair for that comment to taint DeGennaro’s work and that of other patrol officers at the scene.

“I don’t want this one small incident to overshadow the work of the other officer [DeGennaro] or of the Highway Patrol,” Gomez said.

Gomez added, however, that the agency would vigorously investigate the allegation that another CHP officer used inappropriate language. Gomez did not say precisely what penalties that officer might face, but emphasized that all Highway Patrol officers are expected to conduct themselves professionally and to steer clear of racially inflammatory language.

An officer who violated those rules could face discipline--a reprimand or a suspension--as well as required training, Gomez said.

“We will take quick and decisive action to train and to discipline,” said Gomez, adding that the CHP would “make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

As the turmoil of the Riverside case suddenly thrust DeGennaro into the glare of media attention, the officer disappeared from view, at least temporarily. He has been questioned by officials from his own department, as well as the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI, which are jointly investigating possible criminal violations by Watson and Franklin.

But Braun said he asked that his client not be required to report to work Tuesday because so much attention now is focused on him. The Highway Patrol agreed, Braun said, and allowed DeGennaro to be in touch by pager.

“I think they’re trying to gauge how he should deal with being a public figure,” said Braun, a well-known defense attorney familiar with high-profile cases. “They’ve asked him not to make public statements, and he’s agreed.”

Times staff writer Tom Gorman contributed to this article from Riverside.