Mistakes Seen in LAPD Shootings of Mentally Ill

The Los Angeles Police Department has shot and killed a dozen mentally ill or unstable people over the past six years in confrontations involving questionable tactics and use of deadly force, according to police records and witnesses to the shootings.

A detailed Times study of five shootings also raises questions about departmental inquiries in which LAPD investigators appeared to falsify information, distort witness statements or ignore damaging facts. In those cases, The Times was able to obtain copies of confidential police documents and tape recordings.

Since 1994, Los Angeles police officers have shot 37 people who, according to police reports, were exhibiting irrational behavior or symptoms of mental disorders. Twenty-five of those people were killed.

Accounts of police encounters with the mentally ill were compiled by The Times from police chiefs’ reports to the Police Commission on more than 320 officer-involved shootings since 1994. Neither Los Angeles nor other major American cities specifically track such incidents.

In all 37 shootings of mentally ill people, police said they were forced to fire to protect themselves or bystanders.

But in 12 of the incidents, based on standards agreed upon by nationally recognized authorities on policing and mental illness, officers took actions that helped push confrontations to fatal conclusions; in another encounter, an autistic man was permanently paralyzed.

Those incidents translate into an average of one questionable shooting of people in mental crisis every five months.

“I had no idea what a large problem this was,” said Carla Jacobs, a Long Beach-based board member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

In one of the cases, police shot and killed a disoriented and apparently suicidal man as he ambled lethargically in a hospital parking lot, holding a knife that he already had used to partially disembowel himself, police records and a videotape show.

In another, officers surrounded a mentally ill father of five, then killed him after an electronic stun device failed to work properly. Eight witnesses disputed the official police account that the man was shot after he charged at officers.

Police Chief Bernard C. Parks would not comment on specific cases. But he said that all police shootings have been thoroughly investigated and that most were justified. He said the department has to rely on officers’ judgments about the degree of threat they confront in such incidents.

The LAPD’s policy is that police can use guns to protect themselves or others from immediate threat of death or serious injury after nonlethal options are tried or deemed impractical.

Said Deputy Chief Martin Pomeroy: “In a long and difficult case, if you nit-pick you’re liable to find something you disagree with, but that doesn’t invalidate the [department’s] overall finding.”

The LAPD refused to provide its investigative records on the shootings. But drawing on other sources, The Times obtained confidential police records for four of the fatal shootings and for the case in which the man was paralyzed.

Those records, along with videotapes of two shootings, court documents and dozens of interviews with witnesses and experts in law enforcement and mental health, show that in those five cases:

* Officers shot before the person being confronted seemed to pose an immediate threat, which is a requirement of the LAPD’s use-of-force policy, or fired without trying available nonlethal options, such as negotiations, stun devices and beanbag shotguns.

* Police used tactics such as screaming orders at disturbed people who appeared oblivious to their commands, or put themselves in harm’s way by getting too close to the disturbed person. Such tactics, according to experts on use of force and mental health, frequently escalate the encounter to the point where officers are compelled to use deadly force.

* Internal investigations of the shootings missed or ignored key eyewitnesses. Officers involved also appeared to be guided by detectives during questioning or were given the opportunity to coordinate their stories.

In the other eight fatal shootings, public reports by the chiefs of police indicated that officers committed some of the same tactical mistakes in dealing with people in the throes of a mental crisis. The cases could not be thoroughly explored because of the LAPD’s refusal to provide its investigative reports, and the records were not available elsewhere.

LAPD superiors often determine shootings to be “in policy,” even if the use of deadly force became unavoidable due to flawed police tactics. All but one of the 12 questionable fatal confrontations were judged to be justified.

The Times undertook its inquiry shortly after the May 21 shooting of Margaret Mitchell, a diminutive, 55-year-old mentally ill homeless woman. One officer said he fired at Mitchell after she lunged at him with a screwdriver on La Brea Avenue. The fatal shooting ignited a storm of protest, particularly when questions were raised about the thoroughness of the department’s investigation into Mitchell’s death.

Critics wondered why two officers could not subdue the 5-foot-1-inch, 102-pound woman without resorting to deadly force. Parks has ruled the shooting adhered to the department’s policy on use of deadly force, but he criticized the officer’s tactics in the moments before the shooting, saying he missed a chance to disarm Mitchell.

The department describes its inquiries into police shootings as “an elaborate system of investigative and administrative review” in which cases are examined “thoroughly, intensively and exhaustively.” Parks said officer-involved shootings should be probed as rigorously as any other case.

After a shooting occurs, departmental investigators gather facts on which all official judgments are made. A Use of Force Review Board, made up of command staff and a peer officer, is convened to review the case. It forwards its findings to the chief, who issues a written report.

Both the panel and the chief rely on the quality of the investigative detectives’ work to render oversight.

The civilian Police Commission then reviews the chief’s written report and other investigative material. Although that panel has passed judgment on hundreds of shootings in the last 10 years, it has disagreed with LAPD findings fewer than five times, never during Parks’ term. None of the chiefs’ reports to the commission evaluates whether the involved officers’ actions were appropriate in dealing with someone suffering a mental crisis.

In the Mitchell shooting, mental health advocates and police experts said her unkempt appearance and irrational behavior should have alerted officers Edward Larrigan, 29, and Kathy Clark, 30, that she suffered mental problems. The two bicycle officers had stopped Mitchell to ask if she had stolen the shopping cart she was pushing.

“Who walks along with all their belongings in a shopping cart except an emotionally disturbed person?” asked Temple University professor James Fyfe, a use-of-force expert and a former New York City police lieutenant.

There were other signs. Mitchell, rather than responding rationally to the uniformed officers, pulled a screwdriver and told them to leave her alone.

Even as they pointed guns, she allegedly threatened them, and then pushed the cart down the street with the officers following close behind. Larrigan said he had to shoot Mitchell when he got within eight feet of her because she lunged at him with the screwdriver.

“Why did they let themselves get that close?” said Lou Rider, a former LAPD deputy chief and now a police training consultant.

“When you compress the zone between you and the subject, you are creating greater jeopardy to yourself [and] agitation, like a cornered dog gets.”

He said only one officer should have pulled a gun to provide cover while the other talked calmly, ultimately using chemical spray if necessary to control Mitchell.

Parks told City Council members in a closed meeting that all credible civilian witnesses gave statements consistent with the official version of the shooting. But two of those witnesses said in interviews with The Times that they told police that Mitchell never lunged and that the shooting was avoidable in their view.

Moreover, The Times’ examination of the five shooting cases for which detailed records were available found a pattern of excessive reliance on lethal force.

Jeffrey Hobson, 35 / March 29, 1996

Fearing he was sick from marijuana tainted with PCP, Hobson cut himself with a long knife and drove himself to the emergency room, hoping the wound would gain him admission, said Lucretia Clark, a close friend.

He died in a three-minute confrontation that unfolded in a parking area at Daniel Freeman Medical Center in Inglewood after a brief police pursuit.

A camera crew filming for a reality-based television series captured the confused, eerie parking lot scene--the shirtless Hobson holding a knife and fingering a bloody piece of his own intestines, while emergency lights flashed and a police helicopter circled. Eight officers aimed their guns at him and shouted orders.

Such extraordinary displays of force “can stimulate violence rather than defuse it,” Fyfe said.

Hobson took two steps forward. Several officers said later they heard him say, “Kill me.”

Sgt. Christopher Casey got in position to use an electronic stun device designed to knock the fight out of defiant suspects. Before he could use it, Hobson took four slow steps toward the hospital building, and Officer John Wilson shot him.

Later that night, Wilson, Casey and other officers told investigators the same story: Hobson held a knife in a “threatening manner,” headed for the emergency room doors and posed an immediate threat to people inside.

Former Police Chief Willie L. Williams, in his report to the Police Commission, accepted that version, saying Hobson was headed for the doors 18 feet away and posed an immediate threat. Williams wrote that he was “pleased with the tactics” and concluded that the shooting was “in policy.” The Police Commission reviewed the videotape and upheld the ruling.

But the video, photos, police and court records and interviews with witnesses indicate that Hobson posed no immediate threat when shot, as department policy requires.

Hobson didn’t face the emergency room doors. He stood 26 feet away--not 18--and stepped slowly east toward the corner of the building, not southeast toward the doors.

Moreover, police had seven guns trained on Hobson to stop him, had he dashed for the doors.

Even if he managed to elude the gunfire, he could not have gotten through the doors. Wilson later admitted in a sworn deposition that he knew from many prior visits to Daniel Freeman that the door could not be opened from the outside.

The investigators’ final report on the shooting contained several discrepancies with the video and with tape recordings of their interviews with witnesses.

Here are some examples:

* The report said Hobson brandished the knife threateningly. But the video shows he held it down along his leg during the moments before the shooting. It swung slightly with the motion of his body.

* Tape recordings of interviews with civilian witnesses show that detectives’ summaries of four statements deleted parts in which they said Hobson did not turn to the emergency room doors as police claimed.

* Summaries of three of those statements deleted parts in which witnesses said Hobson did not raise the knife in a menacing way. One police summary said a witness saw Hobson raise the knife over his head several times; the witness never said that on the tape.

Deputy Chief Pomeroy said in an interview with The Times that he couldn’t account for the discrepancies, but said they don’t “taint the investigation or the outcome.”

During a closed-door meeting of the department’s Use of Force Review Board in the Hobson case, Parks--then a deputy chief--at one point expressed doubt that Hobson posed an immediate threat, according to documents provided by a source close to the investigation.

In fact, based on his review of the evidence, Richard Dameron, then director of the Police Commission’s staff, said Hobson “did not make a definitive movement toward the entrance and did not pose an immediate threat to hospital personnel,” according to a court records.

The city agreed last month to pay $185,000 and settle a wrongful death lawsuit over the shooting, said Carol Watson, the lawyer for Hobson’s survivors.

Ernesto Aurelio, 29 / Feb. 14, 1994

In incidents in which police confront someone armed with a knife, the distance from potential victims is key in determining whether an armed suspect poses an immediate threat. But in gun cases, the importance of distance almost disappears. Deadly force is frequently the only option for officers confronted by a person with a gun.

Of the 37 shootings of mentally ill or unstable people, 13 involved people with guns.

Judging from the chiefs’ reports to police commissioners, almost all of the incidents appeared to require that officers use deadly force.

But in Aurelio’s case, records and a home video found by The Times provide evidence that the officer shot prematurely.

Aurelio was suffering drug-induced paranoia and delusions. For much of the night, he had wandered in his San Pedro apartment with a gun, talking of hearing voices, seeing people in a tree outside and imagining someone trying to kill him, said his parents, Frank and Frances Aurelio.

The next morning, they took the advice of Aurelio’s former drug rehabilitation center and called police. When officers arrived, Aurelio locked himself in the house alone.

Early in the standoff, police tried a risky ploy. When Aurelio came out on the porch unarmed, they tried to tackle him. Aurelio escaped back inside and police tried to kick the door open, but failed.

Those actions violated a fundamental guideline for dealing with people in a mental crisis, especially those suffering paranoia, police mental health experts say.

“Do not rush the person,” reads a training guide by the Washington-based Police Executive Research Forum, a national group of police administrators of which Chief Parks is a member. “Any attempt to force an issue may quickly backfire in the form of violence.”

Shortly after the police rush failed, Aurelio got his gun.

After locking himself inside the apartment for about two hours, Aurelio came out onto the porch with the gun. Nine minutes later, he was dead.

Officer John Girard, 47, a 23-year veteran, said he shot because Aurelio had pointed the gun several times at officers and was growing more hostile. Girard said Aurelio was counting down from six and he feared Aurelio would lower the gun and shoot when he reached one.

In his report to police commissioners, Chief Williams said he was “pleased with the officers’ ” tactics, that Aurelio posed an immediate threat and that the shooting adhered to policy.

But a video shot by neighbors Bruce and Shari Semione shows Aurelio standing in his pajamas, barefoot and bare-chested, lazily pointing the gun upward, with the barrel close to his own head.

Several times, he counted down from six to one but never fired, undercutting Girard’s argument that Aurelio would shoot after such a count.

Aurelio already had pointed his gun at officers twice, but neither instance prompted police to shoot. The officers were behind cover and neighbors had been evacuated, witnesses and news accounts at the time said.

The chief’s report said that Aurelio had not stepped far enough out onto the porch to give Girard a clear shot. But the video shows Aurelio moving to the porch edge several times, before and after he pointed his gun at officers, yet no one fired.

After eight minutes, Aurelio moved to the porch edge one last time and faced in Girard’s direction.

Again, the chief’s report differed from what was on the video. It said Aurelio moved further out on the porch, held his gun in a “ready position,” and looked “around in an attempt to search for possible targets to shoot at.”

But in the video, Aurelio stands casually and holds the pistol in his right hand, arm bent at the elbow and resting on his other arm draped across his stomach. Instead of pointing at officers, Aurelio again was holding the gun barrel upward and close to his face.

A Special Weapons and Tactics crisis negotiator had arrived but had not yet become engaged.

A full minute elapsed. Then, in one jarring second, Officer Girard fired his shotgun. Aurelio crumpled to the porch, dropping the gun. Police swarmed and yanked his limp body down the steps, his face slamming against the concrete.

“He was taken into custody without further incident,” the chief’s report said.

Joe Joshua, 76 / Oct. 10, 1998

Although those earlier shootings happened during Chief Williams’ tenure, the pattern of reliance on force and questionable investigations has continued since Parks assumed command in 1997.

Joshua, a street person with a history of mental problems, died facing a handful of police officers, one of whom shot him while another was retrieving a shotgun that fires nonlethal beanbags.

Joshua was a familiar, sometimes difficult, character in the South Los Angeles neighborhood, where he rode his bicycle and sold bus tokens. He carried a knife sheathed in his waistband for protection, a common practice among street people.

He was pushing his bike on Vermont Avenue, about to cross Manchester Avenue. Police had blocked the crossing to check a possible bank robbery, and when they refused to let Joshua cross, he argued and began shouting obscenities.

Eventually, Joshua displayed the knife. According to the chief’s report, Joshua said, “I’m God. . . . I’ll kill you.”

One officer went to get the beanbag shotgun from his car. But before he returned, the report said, Joshua “advanced toward” police, and Officer Brian Preston shot him.

As in the Hobson and Aurelio cases, police appeared to make critical mistakes.

From the moment Joshua claimed to be God, police should have recognized that such delusions are classic signs of mental illness, according to the research forum’s law enforcement training guide. The guide also says officers should never shout or give rapid orders in such situations, because it easily upsets the person and adds to the tension.

Not only did the officers shout at Joshua, they confused him, said witness Kenneth Maxie, 47, a truck driver for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“One was telling him to drop the knife; the other was telling him to back up; the other one was telling him to turn around,” Maxie said. “He was bewildered, but defiant. I could see it in his face.”

Although Parks ruled the shooting was proper based on at least one civilian witness and police statements, he said a single officer should have been designated to give orders to Joshua.

At least 18 civilian witnesses said Joshua was standing still or, at most, took only one or two steps. Although their versions contained differences in some details, they said Joshua did not point the knife at officers and threaten them with it.

Six of those witnesses, located by The Times, including one identified and quoted in news articles on the shooting, were not interviewed by police. All said Joshua did not charge or threaten the officers.

Maxie, the truck driver, said he made a concerted effort to help police, but was rebuffed. Maxie said he first approached an officer at the scene, and later made a special trip to the police station, but could not get anyone to interview him. He then complained at the office of City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, which, Maxie said, prompted a call from a detective who left a message on his answering machine. But Maxie said the detective never responded to his return of the call.

The chief’s report to the police commission gave no hint of the extent to which civilian witnesses disagreed with the police version.

Darryl Hood, 40 / Nov. 15, 1997

In another shooting, investigators not only missed key witnesses, but also appeared to coach or guide officers in interviews to get answers, which eventually produced a consistent police version.

Hood, a well-known figure at the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts, was despondent after he and his wife argued over his refusal to get help for his mental illness, court records said.

Hood, known as “Chubby,” began stabbing himself in the head and chest with two knives. Clarence Casey, a Jordan Downs security guard and longtime friend, said Hood was considering surrendering the knives to him, when Officers Miguel Perez and Berzon Distor arrived and scared Hood off. Officers rejected Casey’s offers to help.

They drew their pistols and started yelling at Hood to drop his knife. Hood didn’t respond, Parks’ report to the police commission said.

Instead, the report said, Hood repeatedly told the officers to kill him as he charged at Perez, coming within five or six feet of the officer, forcing him to shoot.

Twice wounded by bullets, Hood ran to an adjacent ball field, where more officers joined Perez and Distor and formed a semicircle to contain the disturbed man against a wall while awaiting the arrival of a stun gun and beanbag shotgun.

But the officer arrived with a stun gun that did not work; the batteries were not adequately charged, a confidential departmental investigative report said.

In any case, Hood “charged,” and two officers shot him seven times, the chief’s report said. The shooting sparked such strong protests that the LAPD called in officers dressed in riot gear.

The chief’s report said the shooting was justified, but ordered training for some officers because several tactical mistakes occurred, including having more than one officer shouting orders at Hood and failing to keep a safe distance from him. The report, however, never mentioned the faulty stun gun.

The Times found six witnesses who say police never interviewed them. All agreed that Hood never charged the officers. Two others interviewed by the police also disputed the official version.

Detectives misrepresented statements, led witnesses to provide certain answers and gave officers involved several chances to be alone, allowing them time to coordinate stories, according to interviews, internal departmental documents and court records.

The official report’s summary of Distor’s tape-recorded statement--taken by Det. J.W. Parker--changed the officer’s statement so that it magnified the danger to be consistent with the official version.

The summary said: “Hood, still holding the knives in each hand with the point of the blades directed at several officers, quickly stepped west toward the officers. As Hood came within approximately eight to 10 feet of officers, Officer Distor heard several rounds fired.”

Distor actually said on the tape: “The suspect took a step forward in a threatening manner with the knives.”

Investigators also failed to separate the involved officers after the shooting, a standard practice in homicide cases.

“That gives the officers a chance to get their stories straight,” said V. James DeSimone, a lawyer for Hood’s relatives, who are suing the LAPD.

Court records show the officers were allowed to ride together back to the 77th Street police station. There, they were allowed to sit together, alone. Then they rode together back to the scene of the shooting to do a walk-through with investigating detectives, officers said in depositions.

Pomeroy declined to comment, citing pending litigation, but said that, in general, when “riotous conditions” exist it may be difficult to separate the officers at the scene.

Finally, the officers were taken back to the station, where detectives from the LAPD’s officer-involved shooting unit turned on the recorders for formal interviews that would create the official record.

The detectives’ questions indicated they were trying to get the officers to agree on the same story. Many questions recite a part of the sequence and ask the officer for a “yes” or “no” answer.

For example, Det. Parker led Distor through a sequence before the incident shifted to the athletic field.

Question: “Is there a point when the suspect stops and redeploys south?” Answer: “Yes.”

Question: “Is there a particular time where the suspect continues south, across toward an athletic field?” Answer: “Yes.”

Question: “And do you and your partner proceed south in his direction?” Answer: “Yes.”

Pomeroy said detectives sometimes ask such questions if an officer’s answers contradict something he said in a “preliminary interview.” He said that preliminary interviews and “walk-throughs” are not recorded.

Larry Friedman, 29 / Oct. 8, 1994

His shooting cost the city $3.25 million in a civil settlement.

It wrecked the chances of Friedman, who is autistic and has the mental capacity of a 9-year-old, to obtain a semi-independent life. Now, he is wheelchair-bound, paralyzed from the chest down and totally dependent on others, said his lawyer, Gary Casselman.

Friedman was living with five other developmentally disabled men at a home in the Northridge area at the time he was shot by police. Officers Kelly Stallings and Sean Williams, responding to a domestic disturbance call at the home, were advised about the residents’ disabilities.

As the officers stood outside, Friedman, who walked with a limp, emerged from the house with a kitchen knife saying, “I’ll kill you,” the chief’s report said.

Stallings said she tried to retreat. But Friedman advanced too fast and she had to shoot when he got within eight to 10 feet of her, the officers said.

The home’s caregivers, Lila Rodriguez and Victor Prescott, said Friedman did not charge Stallings, threaten to kill her or get close to her. Rodriguez said she pleaded with Stallings to let them disarm Friedman because they knew how to deal with him when he “acted out.”

She said Friedman became totally confused as the officers yelled at him to drop the knife.

Friedman’s brother, Alon, said his brother has problems processing information, so that people frequently have to repeat comments several times before he understands.

“The worst thing you can do is scream at him,” he said.

The department ruled the shooting justified because Friedman posed an immediate threat to Stallings. Chief Parks, however, said in his report that the two officers should have considered using a nonlethal weapon.

Confidential police reports, court records and interviews raise questions about the investigation: Prescott said in a sworn deposition that, contrary to the police summary of his statement, he did not tell investigators that Friedman advanced on Stallings. Nor did he say that Friedman got within eight feet of her. He said his estimate was 15-30 feet.

Detectives’ summaries of interviews with Rodriguez and Prescott show they did not ask the witnesses to pinpoint where the officers stood during the encounter. A precise measurement of the distance from the suspect is crucial to determining whether Friedman posed an immediate threat.

Instead, the detectives probing the shooting asked the two witnesses to estimate the distance. Although Rodriguez said she warned she couldn’t give a reasonable estimate, the detectives insisted. She suggested 15 feet.

In contrast, when a lawyer for the officers interviewed the caregivers, they clarified their estimates by placing Stallings and Friedman at specific places. The distance between them was 39 feet, about four times the officers’ estimates and almost three times that of the caregivers.

The Friedman case is bound to others by a common thread: The officers’ accounts of the incident are consistent, but usually different from versions offered by civilians.

And the chiefs’ final reports to police commissioners invariably accepted the officers’ versions.

*

Next: Training in handling the mentally ill is lacking.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Fatal Shootings, Questionable Tactics

These are the 12 fatal shootings of mentally disturbed persons examined by The Times in which actions by LAPD officers contributed to the outcome, based on records and interviews.

* Ernesto Aurelio, 29, killed Feb. 14, 1994, on the porch of his South Leland Avenue apartment in San Pedro.

* Lenko D. Gracin, 22, killed July 31, 1994, while on foot near the intersection of 7th Street and Harbor Boulevard in San Pedro.

* Arnaldo Carbajal, 34, killed May 9, 1995, in his home on West 46th Street in South Los Angeles.

* Robert J. Cooper, killed Sept. 28, 1995, in the driveway of a house on East 90th Street in South Los Angeles.

* Jeffrey Hobson, 35, killed March 29, 1996, while standing in the parking area of the Daniel Freeman Medical Center in Inglewood.

* Ronald S. Carroll, killed June 22, 1996, on his porch on Bessemer Street in Van Nuys.

* Jonathan Horst, 33, killed March 27, 1997, while in his car on a pier in San Pedro.

* Michael Cramer, 37, killed June 20, 1997, at a halfway house for the mentally ill on North Oxford Avenue in Hollywood.

* Darryl Hood, 40, killed Nov. 15, 1997, on the athletic field of the Jordan Downs housing projects in Watts.

* Joe Joshua, 76, killed Oct. 10, 1998, on the sidewalk at the corner of Manchester and Vermont avenues in South Los Angeles.

* Gus Henry Woods, 56, killed March 2, 1999, on the street in his Canoga Park neighborhood.

* Margaret Mitchell, 55, killed May 21, 1999, on the sidewalk near the corner of 4th Street and La Brea Avenue near Hancock Park.