Survivor of Shootout Was Police Informer

The lone survivor of a gun battle with undercover officers that left three of his companions dead was a Los Angeles police informant who had helped lead authorities to two of them who had been suspected in a series of armed robberies, according to testimony Thursday in Van Nuys Municipal Court.

But whether that role helped save Michael Rochelle Smith, who is charged with murder and two dozen other felony counts in connection with the Feb. 25 shootout, remained unexplored. Testimony was to continue today in the preliminary hearing to determine whether Smith should stand trial.

Thursday’s main revelation was that Smith, 24, of Van Nuys, helped lead police to a band of alleged robbers suspected in a series of armed holdups at bars and fast-food restaurants across the San Fernando Valley.

“Michael Smith had knowledge about bar robberies as well as [at] Jack-in-the-Box and Kentucky Fried Chicken,” the lead investigator in the case, LAPD Det. Greg Demirjian, testified.

Smith told police he was worried that his car had been used in previous crimes, Demirjian said.

Smith’s information was then passed to the LAPD’s Special Investigations Section, according to court testimony. Members of the controversial SIS unit, which has been the subject of lawsuits and federal investigations stemming from other fatal confrontations, used the information to trail Smith and the others to The ClassRoom bar in Northridge.

Then the SIS officers chased them into a residential neighborhood, where two men and a woman were shot to death and a bystander was wounded in the ensuing confrontation.

Smith’s only injury was a bite from a trained police dog during a neighborhood search.

Civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman, who is representing the wounded bystander, Grover Wilson Smith, in a civil lawsuit against the LAPD, said Thursday’s testimony marked the first time the LAPD has admitted the involvement of an informant in an SIS operation.

“If [Michael Smith] was helping them out and informing for them, it’s rather incredible he would be charged with felony murder,” said Yagman, whose case on behalf of Grover Smith is pending in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

At the same time, federal authorities are looking into possible criminal civil rights violations during the shootout.

Michael Smith’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender James Michael Coady, said Demirjian’s testimony helped his client by demonstrating that Smith had wanted to sever ties with his slain companions.

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“It showed he didn’t want to be involved with the robbers,” Coady said. “He was trying to stay out of trouble.”

But Demirjian, a detective with the LAPD’s Van Nuys Division, made it clear on the witness stand that Smith was also being watched by police.

The detective testified that soon after he passed along Smith’s information to the SIS, the unit assigned 10 detectives to the case and began their surveillance of half a dozen people, including Smith.

On Feb. 25, two SIS detectives found themselves tailing Smith and two other men the officers identified as Eric Fields and Kurt Deffenbaugh of Van Nuys.

Police watched as the men stopped in front of The ClassRoom bar and peeked inside, the detective testified.

The three men returned to Van Nuys and picked up Smith’s half-sister and the alleged getaway driver, Kim Benton. They piled into a black Mercury Topaz and headed back to Northridge, the detective said.

Police continued to watch as the alleged robbers pulled into an alley behind the bar.

According to testimony, police watched as the three men armed with handguns entered the bar and demanded that patrons hand over their purses and wallets.

With loot in hand, the robbers fled out the back door to the waiting car, which was driven down Roscoe Boulevard to Corbin Avenue followed by two unmarked police cars.

The car turned into a small cul-de-sac on Schoenborn Street, where it made a U-turn and wound up trapped by the two police cars.

Fields, the detective said, leaned out the left rear passenger’s seat of the Topaz and pointed a .45-caliber gun at one the officers.

Police returned fire with .12-gauge shotguns, hitting Benton, who slumped forward into the dashboard, and Deffenbaugh, whose body was discovered “outside, face down” with “property, purses, money and things laying around,” according to testimony.

Also hit inside the car was Fields, who died later at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

“There was an immediate confrontation, there was nowhere to go,” Demirjian said. Smith, who bolted out of the front passenger’s side of the car behind nearby houses, was later tracked down by a police K-9 unit.