Man Held in Officer’s Killing Has Long Record

The young man accused of killing a Los Angeles police officer has a long record of arrests of escalating seriousness, but no convictions for violence, according to documents obtained Thursday.

Catarino Gonzalez Jr., a 20-year-old Los Angeles resident who lives in the heart of a tough gang neighborhood, has been arrested roughly half a dozen times, first as a juvenile and more recently as an adult, law enforcement records show. He also has failed to appear for a number of scheduled court appearances and has a handful of vehicle code violations, according to the records.

But while Gonzalez’s record suggests a man in frequent conflict with the law, it also reflects no previous offense that would mark him as a likely candidate to kill a police officer, as LAPD officials now accuse him of doing.

Some police officials acknowledged privately that their case against Gonzalez lacks some key pieces of evidence.

Officer Filbert H. Cuesta Jr., a husband and the father of two young children, was shot to death last weekend as he waited for other officers to help him and his partner break up a loud party in southwest Los Angeles. The slaying was described as an ambush.

The records obtained Thursday do not indicate if Gonzalez is a gang member, but sources said police have concluded that he is part of the Smiley-Hauser clique of the 18th Street gang. Police reached that conclusion based on Gonzalez’s tattoos and his statements, law enforcement sources said.

According to his rap sheet, Gonzalez’s first known arrest was in 1994, when the 16-year-old was counseled and released after being arrested for possession of a controlled substance. Later brushes with the law included arrests for possessing marijuana to sell and, earlier this year, for purchasing and possessing a quantity of crack cocaine for sale.

That last offense earned Gonzalez his first trip to jail--120 days behind bars followed by 36 months probation. That probation, still in effect, requires that Gonzalez not associate with gang members or be in places where drugs are used, among other things.

If Gonzalez has violated any of his probation’s conditions, he could be held while officials review the possibility of charging him with the murder.

One official familiar with Gonzalez’s record noted that it demonstrates an escalating seriousness of criminal conduct--graduating from marijuana to crack cocaine and from minor infractions to a felony conviction. In addition, it suggests long association with drug use and sales and repeated contacts with law enforcement.

“It’s often the case that the longer you stay in the system, the more you head up the ladder,” one police official said.

Evidence Termed Incomplete

But so far, LAPD officials acknowledged in private, their case is missing some key evidence.

Gonzalez did not have gunpowder residue on his hands when he turned himself in, sources said. And the LAPD has not recovered the murder weapon, a 9-millimeter pistol with which Cuesta was shot in the back of the head as the officer sat in his patrol car.

Without a gun or other definitive physical evidence, the case against Gonzalez at this point rests largely on his statements to police, law enforcement and City Hall sources said.

As a result, one key question that prosecutors will confront is the strength of Gonzalez’s statements implicating himself. A well-placed police source described Gonzalez’s statement, which was tape recorded, as a “partial confession,” meaning that Gonzalez’s comments convinced detectives that he was the killer, but that he did not provide police with a full range of details implicating himself in the slaying.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office was scheduled to receive the case from the LAPD on Thursday, but police did not file their paperwork by the end of the day. That will put the district attorney’s office on the spot today, because state law requires that a suspect be arraigned within 48 hours of arrest.

That means prosecutors will have to make a quick decision about whether to file murder charges against Gonzalez.

Local authorities working under pressure to produce results have been known to grab the wrong suspect in other high-profile cases. During the infamous Night Stalker case, for instance, a task force of local law enforcement agencies, including the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, twice advertised having captured the killer, only to let those suspects go.

While authorities wrestled with the case, the list of victims continued to grow, increasing the pressure on police to get the right suspect behind bars. Ultimately, Richard Ramirez was arrested, tried and convicted of the killings that horrified Los Angeles for much of 1985.

An earlier case, that of the Hillside Strangler, also saw police run through a number of suspects before apprehending the killers. In that case, three different men were arrested and then released.

Nevertheless, neither police nor prosecutors expressed much concern about the strength of their possible case against Gonzalez.

Two police officers familiar with the case said they were confident that the district attorney would file murder charges by the end of the week. Although the formal paperwork had not been handed over to the district attorney yet, prosecutors have been briefed on Gonzalez’s interview, police sources said.

At a morning press conference to inaugurate an anti-gang training center and electronic database, a host of government officials declined to discuss the evidence against Gonzalez, but added that they believe the right man is in custody. Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, who announced the arrest Wednesday night, said he was confident that the evidence pointed to Gonzalez as the killer.

Although not at that press conference, City Councilman Nate Holden said later in the day that he had been briefed by LAPD officials and he too was confident that they had identified the officer’s murderer.

“I am pleased with the Police Department’s skilled investigation,” Holden said.

And Mayor Richard Riordan, who also has been briefed on the status of the case, said that while “everybody has a right to a fair trial . . . based on all the information we have, we have gotten a criminal off the street and Los Angeles is safer today.”

The funeral for Officer Cuesta is scheduled for today. At the request of the family, Riordan will address that gathering.

Times staff writers Steve Berry and Abigail Goldman contributed to this story.

* TOUGH TURF: Officer was killed in an area known for violent gangs and drugs. B1