Oxnard Policeman Indicted by Grand Jury

In the first federal civil rights prosecution against a Ventura County police officer, a grand jury Tuesday indicted Oxnard Officer Robert Flinn on charges of beating a suspect and lying about the incident in a written report.

The federal indictment in Los Angeles comes after a failed attempt by Ventura County prosecutors last year to convict Flinn of police brutality.

During that trial in Superior Court, county prosecutors called Flinn a “185-pound bully with a badge” and accused Oxnard police officers of maintaining a “code of silence” to protect him.

“The vast majority of police officers would never dream of violating the law,” said Jonathan S. Shapiro, an assistant U.S. attorney who also worked on the Rodney King case. “But if the public is going to have faith in law enforcement, they have to trust that when brutality occurs, it will be prosecuted.”

In last year’s trial, Flinn, 30, was accused of beating two men: Juan Lopez, a robbery suspect whom Flinn chased down on foot and allegedly beat with a flashlight; and Victor Aguiar, whom Flinn was accused of kicking in the face during an arrest.

Flinn was acquitted on two counts of police brutality, while the jury deadlocked on two other charges. The district attorney’s office decided not to seek a retrial on the deadlocked charges.

In the meantime, the Ventura office of the FBI launched a lengthy investigation. At least a dozen Oxnard officers were reportedly questioned in Los Angeles during grand jury proceedings.

Prosecutors are charging Flinn only in the Lopez case but have added a count of filing a false police report in the January 1996 incident. In his report, Flinn said Lopez attacked him, but federal prosecutors allege that the suspect surrendered without a fight.

Like the Los Angeles police officers in the Rodney King case, Flinn is being charged with federal civil rights violations after being found not guilty by a local jury. He is to be arraigned Tuesday. If convicted on both charges, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail and a $500,000 in fine.

Lopez, an Oxnard resident and packing house worker, said Tuesday he suffers from chronic headaches and has a scar on his head from being hit with a foot-long metal flashlight.

“He should pay for what he’s done to me, man. I ain’t the same person I was,” Lopez said. “I get scared. There’s days when I don’t want to go anywhere. . . . And I got a big old fat lip that will never go away.”

Flinn, reached at his home Tuesday, said he could not discuss the case.

“When this is all over, I’ll be happy to give you a statement, but I’m in a position now where I can’t,” said Flinn, a seven-year veteran of the Oxnard force.

His Los-Angeles based attorney, William Hadden, said Flinn is again being wrongly accused.

“For whatever reason, the federal government has deemed it worthy of attention,” Hadden said. “I can’t understand it. Flinn is known as a good officer, the jury spoke, and the prosecution in the state case was as zealous as it possibly could have been.”

After months on leave, Flinn returned to active duty after his acquittal last year. But with the federal probe pending, he was pulled from patrol recently and put on desk duty.

Acting Police Chief John Crombach, who testified on behalf on Flinn in last year’s trial, declined to discuss specifics.

“It doesn’t change my opinion of the officer,” Crombach said. “He’s a good police officer.”

Flinn’s legal troubles began two years ago when a fellow officer accused him of using excessive force. Ventura County prosecutors subsequently charged Flinn with four counts of brutality stemming from the two alleged beatings.

In December 1995, prosecutors alleged, Flinn chased Aguiar, then 23, and another man wanted on a probation violation into the backyard of an Oxnard home.

Flinn allegedly kicked Aguiar in the face while he was lying on the ground and bloodied his nose. Although Aguiar complained to authorities, no report of the incident was completed by police, prosecutors contended.

A month later, Flinn chased Lopez, then 29, through Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood. Lopez, who was allegedly carrying stolen battery chargers, was clubbed repeatedly in the head with a flashlight, prosecutors said.

In testimony, Lopez said he was knocked unconscious after being hit at least seven times. Lopez suffered a gash on his head requiring eight stitches and endured headaches as a result, prosecutors said. Last fall, Lopez settled a civil claim with the city of Oxnard for $20,000.

In the criminal trial, only one police officer--David Hawtin, who had left Oxnard to take a job with a Tennessee police department--testified against Flinn. Meanwhile, Aguiar could not identify Flynn during courtroom testimony.

And a parade of Oxnard police officers called their colleague an excellent cop who would never brutalize a suspect.

After deliberating two days, the jury found Flinn not guilty of two charges of brutality against Lopez and split 7 to 5 in favor of acquittal on a third count. The panel voted 11 to 1 in favor of a not-guilty verdict on the charge that he kicked Aguiar.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Frawley, the lead prosecutor in last year’s trial, said Tuesday he still believes the “code of silence” adhered to by Flinn’s fellow officers helped block a conviction.

During the trial, Frawley charged that several officers knew about the two alleged beatings but kept quiet to protect Flinn.

“Do I think justice was done? No,” Frawley said. “I still think he’s guilty.”

Flinn’s indictment underscores the importance prosecutors have placed on police brutality cases in the wake of the King trial, said Martin Levine, a USC law professor.

In standing trial in federal court, the officer will face numerous new hurdles, Levine said.

“It’s a different jury, it’s drawn from a wider area, and you have a federal judge presiding and federal prosecutors,” Levine said. “The U.S. attorney’s office is all first-grade prosecutors, and if they need detective work, it’s the FBI. All those things make it a little different than state court.

“Plus, federal courts do have a majesty, the marble and fine wood. There’s a feeling that this is the United States of America. It’s about as different from traffic court as you can imagine. In federal court, you take everything seriously.”

But Flinn’s attorney said there is little prosecutors can do to strengthen the case. He said Lopez’s claims were not credible, in part because Lopez admitted to being under the influence of heroin at the time of the chase, which began after Lopez allegedly stole the battery chargers from a garage.

“He was never charged with a burglary,” Hadden said. “It’s been a free ride for him.”

As for the allegations of a code of silence, the defense attorney said:

“The state prosecutor’s office made that argument, and it didn’t help them. In this case, many people have made their pro-Flinn sentiments known because they think he’s getting a raw deal. Here it is a year later, and they file charges. There’s no peace.”

Federal prosecutors said they file only about 10 police brutality cases a year in the district stretching from San Diego County to San Luis Obispo County--and that this is the first of its kind for Ventura County.

And while other high-profile cases may be tinged with charges of racism, Assistant U.S. Atty. Shapiro described this case as a straightforward instance of civil rights violations without racial overtones.

“It’s a case of excessive force, police brutality and false charges,” he said.

Locally, the Flinn case created a deep rift between the district attorney’s office and Oxnard Police Department. Eventually, Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury met with police officers in an effort to ease the tension.