Autopsy Report Has New Version of Paz Shooting

An autopsy report on Mario Paz, the unarmed grandfather shot in the back by El Monte police during a SWAT raid on his Compton home Aug. 9, said his lifeless body was found kneeling against his own bed--and it introduced a new official version of the shooting: that Paz’s wife had reportedly “tackled” the lead officer.

As the Los Angeles County coroner’s report was released Wednesday, Philip Montez, the regional director of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in Los Angeles, revealed plans to conduct a preliminary investigation into the Paz case. Montez will report his findings to Washington, where officials will decide whether there should be a full investigation.

The FBI is conducting a separate inquiry at the request of the U.S. Justice Department, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is probing the incident as an officer-involved shooting.

The autopsy report emerged amid a series of setbacks in the drug case that El Monte police say prompted their search of the home of the 65-year-old Paz--which yielded no drugs, arrests or charges.

* Authorities dismissed the case against Paul Lizarraga, one of two suspects in a drug investigation that police said led them to the Paz residence. Officials said the case was dropped so they could refile charges against Lizarraga and the other defendant to permit a joint trial. Lizarraga subsequently went to Mexico, according to his lawyer, Mike Carney.

* A police videotape of the search of Lizarraga’s home is reportedly blank. When Lizarraga’s lawyer asked for the El Monte police videotape of Lizarraga’s rented home, police asked the judge to wait several days until the police video “technician” returned to work--but then said the tape was blank because the camera was operated by a police “amateur.”

Meanwhile, another immigrant family has told lawyers that six El Monte police pushed their way into their Downey home Sept. 22 and told the mother they knew the family was involved in drug trafficking but would not prosecute them if they agreed to testify that Mario Paz and the department’s prime suspect, Marcos Beltran, were drug dealers, according to attorney Jeffrey Sklan, who says he is representing the family.

Sklan said El Monte police did not produce a search warrant, but when the family opened the door, officers pushed their way in and searched the home. Sklan said police threatened the mother, Rosa Felix, that if she did not give them the information they were looking for, police would lead her away in handcuffs and take her children from her.

The family refused, telling police they met Mario Paz when they bought used cars from him, Sklan said. The family said they had no indication that either Paz or Marcos Beltran were involved in drug trafficking, Sklan said.

“They were really browbeating her, threatening to take away her kids,” said Sklan, who also represents the drug suspect, Marcos Beltran, who Sklan said is out on bail on charges of conspiracy to import marijuana into the state.

Sklan said Felix told him police taped an interview with her in a bedroom and took away numerous items--an address book and personal papers--without leaving behind an inventory sheet.

Sklan said he could not immediately make Felix available for interviews.

El Monte Assistant Police Chief Bill Ankeny said of the new reported search: “I didn’t hear about that. Even if I had, I couldn’t comment.”

Ankeny said El Monte police still did not have a copy of the autopsy report, which is dated Aug. 14 and was released by the Paz family’s lawyers Wednesday, and that he could not comment on the details of the raid.

Ankeny has said the officers had no information that the Paz family was involved in drug trafficking when they served the high-risk search warrant around 11 p.m. Aug. 9 and that he was unsure if police expected to find anyone living there. He said police were looking for evidence--drugs or money--to further their drug case against Beltran.

Beltran had been released on bail the morning of the raid on the Paz residence after police said they found $75,000 in a search of Beltran’s home and 400 pounds of marijuana in a locked room of the rented home of a relative, Paul Lizarraga. Beltran said the cash was from a livestock sale. Lizarraga, who allowed police to conduct a “consent search” of his rented home, said he did not have a key to its locked rooms and was unaware drugs were stored there, a police record said.

Beltran is to be arraigned Oct. 13. The case against Lizarraga was dropped, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry White, so that authorities could refile charges against him in order for he and Beltran to be prosecuted together--sparing taxpayers the expense of two trials. But Lizarraga is now reportedly in Mexico.

“My information is that [Lizarraga] has been deported,” White said.

Beltran lived next door to Paz years ago, and had used his mailing address recently--leading police to the Paz home, the warrant said.

On the night of the SWAT raid, Mario Paz, a father of six and grandfather of 14, was asleep with his wife, Maria Luisa, when El Monte police shot the locks off the front and back doors of the family’s home and stormed inside. Two El Monte police officers stormed into the bedroom and one of them, Sgt. George Hopkins, shot Paz twice in the back, killing him, police said.

The Sheriff’s Department, which is investigating the killing as an officer-involved shooting, has provided three different explanations of why Paz was shot.

An Aug. 10 statement said the officer shot Paz with his duty weapon because he believed Paz was armed. An investigator, Lt. Marilyn Baker, said the officer thought he saw the unarmed Paz reaching for a gun. An Aug. 26 statement said Paz was shot when he reached for a nearby drawer where police say they found guns.

The autopsy report said authorities who were interviewed reported that Mario Paz “failed to heed multiple commands from officers to cease his furtive movements” and that Maria Luisa “tackled the lead officer.”

Maria Luisa has told reporters she lay on the floor in her underpants and begged for her husband’s life, and even grabbed the officer’s leg as she pleaded with him. But this was the first time anyone claimed she tackled him.

Attorney Cameron Stewart, who filed a civil claim against El Monte on behalf of the Paz family, called the new version “part of the overall cover-up by the El Monte Police Department.”

“They don’t raise this version that she tackled the officer until days after the incident occurred,” Stewart said. “Certainly had he been tackled, that would have been foremost in their minds, and it would have been one of the first things mentioned early on. They just keep coming up with different versions of the incident to cover up their own gross negligence.”

Stewart said she will file a motion Wednesday to recover $11,000 in cash El Monte police seized as evidence at the Paz home along with a gold bracelet and necklace that Paz was wearing the night he died.

“We have no idea who has it,” she said. “The autopsy report says he has no clothing, so we’re going to ask that if it’s in [El Monte Police Department] possession that it be returned.”

Stewart said she will also ask if there was a videotape of the Paz search.

Assistant Chief Ankeny said he does not know if the Paz raid was taped, and referred a reporter to El Monte City Atty. Jimmy Gutierrez, who did not return calls seeking comment.

Deputy Dist. Atty. White, who is assigned to the case against Beltran and Lizarraga, said he does not know if there is a videotape in the Paz case.

“I’m aware that it’s typical that they videotape those searches,” he said. “In fact, it’s done in most cases.”