Officers Justified in Killing Driver, O.C. D.A. Says

The Orange County district attorney’s office announced Friday it will not file charges against four officers involved in the Valentine’s Day chase and fatal shooting of Korean national Hong Il Kim.

A 4-month investigation by the office concluded that the officers--two plainclothes detectives from Orange and one officer each from Westminster and the California Highway Patrol--were justified in firing “some 30 shots” at Kim after a 32-mile chase.

The fatal shot struck Kim, 27, above the left eye, the investigation found.

“In legal terms, it was a justifiable homicide,” Assistant Dist. Atty. John D. Conley said. “It’s basically self-defense.”

Angela Oh, a Los Angeles attorney representing Kim’s family, said she expected the finding.

“While the result is disappointing, it is not surprising,” she said. “It is consistent with what we know is this district attorney’s decision involving almost all of these cases.”

Rodney Chai, Kim’s brother-in-law, said the family had been prepared for the decision.

“The Orange County district attorney has never prosecuted any police officers in any wrongful death,” he said. “This shooting was improper. This shooting wasn’t right. The D.A.’s office decision is just out of line.”

The district attorney’s office, which investigates all officer-involved shootings in Orange County, has not filed charges in any of the last 56 homicides attributed to police.

The televised pursuit drew international attention after police were shown firing at Kim, whose Toyota 4-Runner appeared to be boxed in, with cars on each side, two police cruisers behind, a concrete wall in front, and officers with guns drawn surrounding him.

Five experts in the use of deadly force who reviewed a videotape of the shooting at the request of The Times in March said the shooting was avoidable and that the officers committed a series of tactical errors that cost Kim his life. At least two local police chiefs also said the shooting never should have happened.

The 32-minute pursuit began when a Westminster patrol officer spotted Kim driving recklessly. Kim refused to pull over and led as many as a dozen police officers on a chase that reached speeds of 95 mph.

The caravan of police cruisers followed Kim into the parking lot of an Orange mini-mall. His 4-Runner was eventually cornered by the patrol cars and rammed into a parking space. With no way for Kim to escape, four police officers with guns drawn circled the truck on foot.

Two plainclothes Orange detectives stood in front, with a CHP officer to the side and a Westminster officer behind.

When Kim put his vehicle in gear and began moving forward, the officers in front opened fire, followed by the officers in the rear and to the side.

Conley said an examination of the video shows that the two Orange detectives were clearly in fear for their lives when they began shooting at Kim.

When the CHP cruiser hit Kim’s 4-Runner and knocked it into the space, the two officers were suddenly in front of the truck, Conley said.

“Seconds before, they were to the side of the vehicle,” Conley said. “Then [Kim] revs the vehicle and starts toward them, and then they shoot.”

Conley said the other two officers began to fire believing the lives of the two plainclothes detectives were in danger. But one of the officers, Conley said, did not even know that the men in front of the truck were officers.

Conley said his office looks at whether the officers “think at that point that their life is in danger or that someone else’s life is in danger.”

A two-page press release from the district attorney’s office described the chase in detail and said that an unidentified couple said they saw Kim attempting to light a “pipe smoked by drug users” during the chase, although no drug paraphernalia was found in his truck after the shooting. Laboratory tests showed that Kim had “high levels” of cocaine in his system at the time of his death.

Oh said she was troubled that it appeared the district attorney focused on Kim’s alleged drug use--not on the behavior of the officers immediately before Kim was shot to death.

“None of that [information about drugs] was known to the officers at the time,” she said. “They weren’t even sure of his identity until afterward. I have a problem with what appears to be a smoke screen. . . . This unnamed husband and wife had nothing to do with the death of Kim.”

Conley said the fact that cocaine found in Kim’s system was not a factor in his office’s decision not to press charges.

“I don’t think the drug use does anything but explain why this man didn’t pull over,” Conley said. “You can’t be shot because you’re using cocaine or you’re drunk driving. . . . [The cocaine findings] only kind of explain the bizarre nature of his conduct.”

Orange Police Chief John R. Robertson said the district attorney’s decision came as no surprise, but nevertheless brought closure to a painful event.

“We were very confident that the D.A. would find no criminal wrongdoing. We’ve looked at this over and over and over again,” Robertson said. “If you look at the evidence and you look at it with your head rather than your heart, I think you’d reach the same conclusion.”

The video of the shooting is easy to “misjudge” if viewed emotionally, but “if you can look at it from the perspective of the officers, you can see that they had no choice,” Robertson said.

But deadly force experts who reviewed the tape said the officers clearly had a choice: They could have moved out of the way.

“In terms of the officers’ need to shoot this person, there was none,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a University of South Carolina criminal justice professor. “They never should have been in front of the car in the first place. . . . You take cover and wait for him to come out.”

Chai and Oh said Friday that the family still intends to file a civil suit and said the FBI is investigating the shooting to see if Kim’s civil rights were violated. Kim’s death has galvanized a rare coalition of Asian-American and Latino activists, as well as the South Korean government, to challenge the official justification for the shooting.

“Hopefully, the U.S. attorney can prosecute these officers,” Chai said. “No matter what, we will go all the way. This is just outrageous.”

Times staff writer Lee Romney contributed to this report.