2 Witnesses to Police Shooting Dispute Parks

Flatly contradicting the official account given by Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, two eyewitnesses who were just feet away when an officer fatally shot a mentally ill homeless woman have told The Times that Margaret Laverne Mitchell was attempting to flee and never attacked the two officers with a screwdriver, as they have alleged.

James Moody, who was about 12 feet away when the shooting occurred, said Mitchell neither lunged at nor slashed at the two dismounted bicycle officers with the 12-inch screwdriver. Moody, 68, was the closest civilian eyewitness to the controversial May 21 shooting by Officer Edward Larrigan, 27. The incident took place at La Brea Avenue and 4th Street, just west of Hancock Park. The officers confronted Mitchell, 55, to question her about whether the shopping cart she was pushing was stolen.

“It was the officer’s fault,” Moody said Saturday. “She wasn’t close enough to stick that man with a screwdriver. She wasn’t close enough, period.”

Another eyewitness, an auto salesman who asked not to be identified and who observed the shooting from a perch above the sidewalk at the La Brea Avenue Motors car dealership, said:’ It wasn’t like what [the officer] said. She did not attack him. She did not drive the screwdriver at him.”

Both men provided detailed accounts of the shooting to police immediately after Mitchell was shot on the sidewalk outside the car dealership--before Parks told reporters and a closed-door City Council session that Larrigan and partner Kathy Clark were defending themselves when Mitchell was shot.

Six days after the incident, Parks told reporters, “From what we’ve seen so far, these officers at this point do not appear [to have] done anything wrong.” Friday, he told an executive session of the City Council that police have interviewed 16 civilian witnesses, and that two gave accounts “which were inconsistent with the officers’ statements.” None of the witnesses said to back the police officers’ story have made their statements public.

The Times has interviewed six eyewitnesses who contradict at least some aspects of the police account; four of them say they have given statements to LAPD investigators.

Four of the witnesses interviewed by The Times said they saw the events immediately leading up to the shooting.

On the evening of the shooting, police spokesman Lt. Tony Alba told reporters that Mitchell had tried to stab the two officers with the screwdriver and that Larrigan shot her after she lunged at him, causing him to lose his balance and feel threatened. Alba said that several witnesses were taken to the LAPD’s Wilshire Division station for questioning immediately following the shooting, but that none of them contradicted Larrigan’s account.

In his report to the council Friday, Parks said Larrigan shot Mitchell “to avoid being stabbed” after she “raised the screwdriver parallel to the ground in a thrusting manner and lunged toward the officer.”

However, Moody, the car salesman and another eyewitness interviewed by The Times give different versions of those events.

Moody and the car salesman--said they were watching Mitchell from less than 20 feet away when the shooting occurred. Both said she was trying to get away from the two officers, that she did not attack them or lunge at them and that she was too far away from Larrigan to cause him to have to shoot her, even if she had lunged at him.

The car salesman said he told police that Larrigan shot Mitchell as she fled from the officers. She was pulling her cart behind her with her left hand, he said, and partially facing the pursuing officers when Larrigan fired.

“She was running away from the officers at the time she got shot,” he said.

Moody, a retired truck driver, gave police a detailed account during about 10 hours of questioning on the night of the shooting, he said.

He said he was driving along 4th Street when he stopped his car at a red light at the intersection of La Brea Avenue. He noticed the two bicycle officers talking to Mitchell as she clutched a shopping cart filled with belongings with one hand and brandished the screwdriver in the air with the other.

Moody parked his car, got out and intervened, telling Mitchell to “listen” to the officers, he said.

Instead, Mitchell began pulling her cart southbound on La Brea Avenue, and the officers followed, with Moody trailing, according to his account. As Mitchell pulled the cart with her left hand, Larrigan approached her and she moved around to the same side of the cart as the officer, Moody said.

Then, Larrigan’s gun fired. Although Moody said the officer “seemed pretty close to the [shopping] basket, the woman couldn’t stab him from where she was. At no time was she close enough. . . . She was always backing away from the officers,” Moody said. “She was trying to get away when he shot.”

Moody added that “I didn’t see that woman lunge at that man. . . . I told [police investigators] it wasn’t justified.”

Saturday, however, an LAPD official, who asked not to be identified, said the department does not consider Moody one of the two “inconsistent” witnesses.

“His statement is more consistent than inconsistent with what occurred,” the official said. “He’s in the middle. There’s a lot of area of gray.”

Cmdr. David J. Kalish, the LAPD’s spokesman, declined to characterize what Moody told police. “It would be inappropriate at this time,” he said, to comment on why police don’t consider Moody’s account to be inconsistent with the department’s version.

Saturday, several City Council members said Parks did not mention the content of Moody’s statements during the Friday briefing.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said: ‘It seems we have a growing body of contradictory information from witnesses, and that causes great concern.”

Councilman Mike Feuer said he finds Moody’s “allegations troubling,” adding that he will seek more information from police about such statements. “I never like to make assumptions until I’ve had a chance to scrutinize the information, and that’s what I plan to do.”

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas cautioned police and community members not “to rush to judgment” on the shooting, saying the investigation should be completed before any conclusions are reached.

Ridley-Thomas said police officials, including Parks, should refrain from making statements characterizing the evidence until the probe is finished.