Officers Found to Have Acted Properly in Shootout
The Los Angeles Police Commission and Chief Bernard C. Parks on Tuesday concluded that officers from an elite undercover squad acted “in policy” during a shootout with four robbery suspects following a holdup of a Northridge bar.
In a report to the civilian commission, Parks disclosed that prior to the shooting that day, officers had attempted to get the district attorney to file robbery charges against a couple of the suspects for a previous holdup, but a prosecutor declined.
Parks said the prosecutor rejected the case because of a belief that the victim’s identification of the suspects would not withstand cross-examination. The victim, police records show, was able to positively identify the suspects despite the fact that the suspects were wearing stocking masks during the crime.
A spokesperson for the district attorney could not be reached late Tuesday.
In the February 1997 incident, officers from the department’s Special Investigations Section shot and killed three of the four robbery suspects they chased into a Northridge neighborhood after the armed holdup of about 20 patrons and employees at a nearby blues bar. During the shootout, a bystander was injured.
The bystander has since sued the LAPD and the SIS as a result of the shooting. The case is pending in federal court.
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