Officer Beating Case Ends in Mistrial

With the jury hopelessly deadlocked, a federal judge declared a mistrial Friday for an Oxnard police officer accused of beating an unarmed burglary suspect with a metal flashlight during an arrest two years ago.

The jury was divided 11 to 1 in favor of acquittal on the beating charge after three tense days of deliberations. The holdout was forewoman Eunice Thompson of Cerritos, who said she firmly believed Officer Robert Flinn intentionally beat suspect Juan Lopez in the head because he ran from police. “I believe he was enraged,” she said of the officer.

The jury acquitted Flinn on a second charge of filing a false report against Lopez--a move prosecutors argued the officer took to cover up the alleged beating.

Flinn showed little reaction as the verdicts were announced. For three days, the 30-year-old detective had anxiously paced the hallways of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

Standing outside the courtroom Friday with his family and other supporters, Flinn appeared emotionally drained. He embraced his relatives as he stepped out of court and declined to comment.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Gennaco said it was too early to say whether his office would retry the officer.

Defense attorney Barry Levin said he hopes prosecutors will simply drop the case.

“I think they will evaluate this over the weekend and decide not to seek another prosecution,” Levin said. “If this case were to be tried 50 times over, it would have the same result.”

Ironically, the results of the federal case mirrored those returned after a contentious trial in state court last year.

In April 1997, a Ventura County jury found Flinn not guilty of using excessive force during the same 1996 arrest. The jury deadlocked on two other charges and the judge declared a mistrial.

Afterward, local prosecutors decided not to refile charges.

But federal prosecutors later stepped in and leveled charges against the officer--a rare move not seen since the trial of the Los Angeles police officers accused in the Rodney G. King beating case.

A seven-year veteran of the Oxnard police force, Flinn was charged with two federal offenses: violating Lopez’s constitutional right to not have police beat him, and his right to not have false charges leveled against him.

The beating allegedly occurred after Lopez, 31, was caught stealing battery chargers from a neighbor’s garage on Jan. 27, 1996.

During the trial, Lopez--an unemployed heroin addict with a history of drug convictions--told the jury that he was afraid of going to jail and fled when he saw police.

But he said he quickly became tired by the foot chase and decided to stop. When he turned around to surrender, Lopez testified, the officer smashed him in the face with a metal flashlight.

Former Oxnard Police Officer David Hawtin testified that he also saw Flinn hit Lopez in the head with a flashlight.

Hawtin admitted that he only came forward after he was mistakenly fingered by Lopez as the abusive officer, however. And he acknowledged that there had been “bad blood” between him and Flinn for years.

During the trial, Flinn took the stand in his own defense and flatly denied the charges.