Tapes of Shooting Released

Audiotapes of a controversial police shooting in Claremont reveal a garbled version of events leading up to the gunfire, followed by a frantically breathing officer saying, “No, I’m not hit,” and then screaming, “We have a suspect down!” over the radio.

The three tapes, recently released by the Claremont Police Department and reviewed by The Times this week, provide brief glimpses into an incident that took place almost a year ago and is still fueling weekly protests and debate in this tree-lined college town.

Irvin Landrum Jr., 18, was shot three times by two officers as he stood outside his car during a traffic stop. Officers Hany Hanna and Kent Jacks say that he pulled a gun and fired at them.

A subsequent sheriff’s investigation, however, showed the gun had not been fired, bore no fingerprints, and was last registered to a deceased police chief in a nearby town. Although the district attorney’s office has determined that the officers did not act criminally, Landrum’s family alleges that the young man did not own a gun, and that it was planted by police. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the shooting.

One of the audiotapes released by the department contains an interview with a sobbing woman who says she saw the weapon under the driver’s seat in Landrum’s car Jan. 4, just a week before the shooting. The woman, identified as Teresa Ramirez, the mother of Landrum’s baby son, described the gun and holster to sheriff’s homicide Det. Thomas Kerfoot.

“You could even see the bullets in the chamber,” she is heard to say on the tape, as children clamor in the background. “It was silver and it looked like it had a brown handle.”

According to the sheriff’s report, the gun was a large, .45-caliber revolver.

In an interview Tuesday with The Times, Ramirez denied making the statements to Kerfoot, saying that she only told him she saw a BB gun. “That’s the only gun I have seen,” she said. She had not heard the tape, but said it must contain someone else’s voice.

Kerfoot did not return calls seeking comment, but Claremont Police Chief Robert Moody called her allegations “crazy.”

“That’s saying that Kerfoot, a professional, longtime detective in the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, is falsifying evidence and that he’s putting his career on the line for something like this,” said Moody. “That’s crazy. Why would he do it?”

The tape begins in the middle of the conversation, with the detective saying, “OK, I’m back.” Later, the crying woman, who had just been informed by Kerfoot of the shooting, said she had tried to talk to Landrum about the weapon. “I told him you better be careful. . . ,” she said. “We used to always argue because he always carried a gun in his car.”

Another tape contains police dispatches from the night of the shooting, although no times are indicated. Moody said the tapes were taken from a CD, which does indicate the time when played on a proper computer. The tape reveals Hanna running Landrum’s name over the radio, followed by a panicked call from Jacks.

“514 999 999!” Jacks is heard screaming. “511 999 999!” 999 is the emergency code for “officer needs assistance,” while the other two numbers are each patrol car’s codes.

A third tape was a micro-cassette, crackling with static, carried by Jacks, which seems to conform with the dispatch tape. This final tape contains what appears to be a 40-second discussion between Landrum and Hanna over the merit of the traffic stop and subsequent search.

The conversation ends with Hanna saying “The point of the matter is. . . ,” followed by a brief muffled statement, then shuffling and a single shot. There is then a pause followed by 14 shots.

Some sheriff’s investigators discerned the muffled statement to be Landrum saying, “You’re both dead.” Other detectives and a Times reporter could not make out those words.

On Jacks’ tape, one can hear the officer yelling the codes also recorded on the dispatch tape. He then says, “No, I’m not hit,” and then radios again: “We have a suspect down! We have a suspect down!”