2 Witnesses Take Stand in Officer’s Brutality Case

At the moment Juan Lopez was caught by Oxnard Police Officer Robert Flinn burglarizing a garage, he was high on heroin and scared of going to jail.

So he ran.

With the officer in pursuit, Lopez darted through a residential neighborhood, leaping over fences and ducking under clotheslines. But he quickly became winded and decided to stop. Standing in the driveway of an Oxnard tract home, he slowly turned to face his pursuer.

“That’s when I got hit,” Lopez said, testifying Wednesday in Flinn’s federal civil rights trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. “He hit me right away. I seen stars and black. Then he kept on hitting me and hitting me in the back of the head.”

Flinn, 30, is accused of violating Lopez’s civil rights during the arrest. He faces two charges--that he violated Lopez’s right to not be beaten by police and his right to not have false evidence planted against him. Prosecutors say after Flynn hit Lopez the officer filed a false battery report against Lopez.

Lopez, a 31-year-old high school dropout and admitted heroin addict, told the jury Wednesday that an officer hit him in the face with a black metal flashlight, grabbed his shirt and then struck him at least four more times. Lopez said the officer also thrust a knee in his face as Lopez collapsed to the ground.

Although Lopez said he doesn’t know the name of the officer who allegedly brutalized him, a second police officer who arrived at the scene testified Wednesday that it was Flinn.

Officer David Hawtin, who is no longer with the Oxnard Police Department, told the jury that he vividly recalls seeing Flinn smash a department-issue flashlight over Lopez’s head.

“When that man was struck, it shocked me beyond belief,” Hawtin testified. “And I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”

Like the Los Angeles police officers in the Rodney King beating case, Flinn is being charged with federal civil rights violations after being acquitted on police brutality charges in state court last year. It is the first civil rights prosecution of a Ventura County police officer.

The trial opened Tuesday with the government’s first three witnesses. The prosecution concluded its case late Wednesday afternoon after hearing from its two key witnesses: Hawtin and Lopez.

Hawtin told the jury that he, Flinn and a third officer responded to the same call of a burglary in progress in Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood on the afternoon of Jan. 27, 1996. Flinn arrived first and began chasing Lopez after he ran, Hawtin said.

Still in his patrol car, Hawtin said he pulled up to the driveway where Lopez had stopped and immediately saw an “unwarranted” beating of a surrendering suspect.

“He wasn’t resisting,” Hawtin said, adding later in his testimony: “Mr. Lopez didn’t do anything in that yard that would justify a strike to the head.”

But Hawtin’s story as well as his credibility and motive for accusing Flinn of using excessive force were sharply challenged by the defense.

During a testy exchange with attorney Barry Levin, Hawtin acknowledged he passed up two opportunities to notify his superiors of the alleged beating before coming forward. He further acknowledged he came forward after overhearing Lopez identify him as the abusive officer to a police supervisor interviewing Lopez at the hospital.

“You never saw Officer Flinn hit Mr. Lopez with a flashlight, did you?” Levin asked. “You assumed Officer Flinn struck Mr. Lopez because that is what you overheard Mr. Lopez say, isn’t that correct?”

“You used Officer Flinn as your patsy, didn’t you?” Levin continued in a booming voice.

But Hawtin denied making Flinn the fall guy to insulate himself from a possible internal investigation. And he denied coming forward as a way of taking a parting shot at the Oxnard Police Department. Hawtin had previously given notice and his last day on the force was the day Lopez was arrested.

But Hawtin acknowledged there was animosity between him and Flinn dating back years. He told the jury that he and Flinn had three verbal altercations prior to January 1996, but said he harbored no ill will against the defendant.

On redirect examination by Assistant U.S. Atty. Jonathan Shapiro, Hawtin said he has gained nothing but heartache by coming forward with such allegations against a fellow officer.

Now a policeman in Brentwood, Tenn., Hawtin said he is shunned by other members of law enforcement. He also testified his marriage had ended, in part, because of the case--a statement disputed by Levin, who said later that Hawtin and his wife filed for divorce five years before the Lopez arrest.

One of the most significant pieces of evidence to arise from Hawtin’s testimony Wednesday was his description of Lopez’s “surrender” to Flinn--primarily because it differed sharply from the story Lopez told the jury when he took the stand later in the day.

Hawtin testified he saw Lopez raise his arms in a surrendering pose with his palms open. But Lopez told the jury that he distinctly recalls holding his arms outstretched from his chest with his fists clenched. Demonstrating that stance for the jury, Lopez said he was waiting for the officer to handcuff him.

The differing testimony was cited by U.S. Dist. Judge Steven V. Wilson when he took up a defense motion at the end of the court day to dismiss the charges. Levin argued the prosecution failed to prove its case, and the judge did not disagree.

“The presentation has, at least to me, been of the variety I am not accustomed to in criminal cases,” Wilson said after the jury was sent home.

He questioned Hawtin’s credibility and said the differing accounts of Lopez’s hand gestures were a “serious concern.” But Wilson told the lawyers that he could not dismiss a case based on credibility issues alone.

“You have, at least in my view, been effective in your examination,” Wilson told Levin. “But it is not for me to be the proverbial 13th juror.”

Testimony is scheduled to continue this morning as the defense calls its first witnesses.