Witness Says Shots Fired Without Warning

With horrifying swiftness, a routine “check-the-welfare” call at Daniel Allan Tuffree’s house erupted in deadly gunfire, witnesses testified Monday at his murder trial.

One minute, Simi Valley Police Officer Michael Clark and two colleagues were talking to Tuffree through his window, testified neighbor Eddie Lomprey.

The next, Lomprey said, gunshots rang out and bullets shattered glass and splintered the wooden fence around Tuffree’s home. Clark fell, and one of his colleagues shouted, “Oh my God, we’ll get you out, we’ll get you out, just hang in there!”

Tuffree, 49, could face the death penalty in the Aug. 4, 1995, shooting if convicted of murdering Clark, a former officer with the LAPD’s Devonshire Division who had been on the Simi Valley force barely five months.

Clark would have turned 30 on Monday, said his widow, Jenifer Clark.

She sat with family members through most of the emotional testimony Monday, the first full day of trial after a weeklong hiatus.

But parts of it were very difficult, she said.

In the morning, jurors heard tapes of a police dispatcher sending Clark to his last call: Check on the welfare of a man named Daniel Tuffree, who reportedly has been using alcohol and Valium and refusing to answer the phone.

Clark replied with the police code for “message received,” and his unit number: “10-4, Paul 25.”

On hearing that, Jenifer Clark began crying softly, then rose and rushed out of the courtroom. She returned for the afternoon session and listened along with jurors as the police tape rolled on.

At Clark’s request, dispatchers also sent to the scene Officer Michael Pierce and Sgt. Anthony Anzilotti, testified dispatcher Michael Homsy.

On arriving, Pierce asked the dispatcher to clear the radio channel of all other traffic by bumping officers to another channel--standard procedure when approaching an open door or potentially dangerous situation, Homsy testified.

Seconds later, Anzilotti could be heard on tape yelling, “Sam 23, shots fired, shots fired!”

As the dispatcher quickly ordered two more cruisers to rush to the Tuffree house with lights and sirens blaring, a few seconds more passed. Then Anzilotti could be heard on the open channel shouting, “Clark, is that you shooting?”

Ten seconds later, Anzilotti radioed, “Dispatch, respond fire and ambulance to officer down!”

After Homsy testified further under cross-examination, neighbor Eddie Lomprey took the stand to give an eyewitness account of the face-off from the moment Clark showed up:

Lomprey testified that Clark told him police were concerned that Tuffree might be suicidal.

After Clark peeked into Tuffree’s garage and verified that the man’s car was there, Lomprey warned the officer, “He usually doesn’t answer the door, especially if the police go there.”

“He said, ‘Oh really? We’ve been here before,’ ” Lomprey recalled. “And I said, ‘Yes, many times.’ ”

When Clark said he intended to go inside to make sure Tuffree was OK, Lomprey testified that he warned the officer not to press the issue, or at least to put on a bulletproof vest.

Tuffree owned guns, had been known to shoot and was “peculiar,” Lomprey testified.

Clark radioed for backup. When Anzilotti and Pierce arrived, the three went to the front door and knocked, Lomprey testified. Hearing no answer, they walked through a side gate and approached the house.

Lomprey said he heard an officer say: “Open the door, open the window, we need to talk to you.”

After some mumbling, he testified, an officer said: “No, we’re not going to leave, we can’t leave. We need to make sure you’re OK. We’re not going to let you kill yourself.”

“There was a pause, about 10 seconds, and then I heard, ‘He’s got a gun!’ ” Lomprey said.

Then the shooting began, he said.

First came a dull, muffled gunshot, then a flurry of louder shots seconds later. Lomprey heard the sound of shattering glass and dived for cover on his lawn, then looked back to see bullets blasting shards off of Tuffree’s fence.

When he heard one of Clark’s colleagues shouting, “Just hang in there, we’ll get you out!” Lomprey testified, he ran inside and told his grandmother to call 911.

Lomprey said he emerged just as Anzilotti sprinted to a police cruiser, grabbed a shotgun and fired two rounds at Tuffree’s house.

A few minutes later he watched as special weapons and tactics officers rammed an armored car through Tuffree’s fence amid the gunfight to rescue Clark, who died soon thereafter.

Testimony is set to continue at 10 a.m. today after a hearing on a motion filed by lawyers for The Times seeking to have Superior Court Judge Allan Steele unseal the records of several pretrial hearings that he held secretly with prosecutors and defense attorneys so they could discuss a police interview with Tuffree outside the public’s view.