Man Freed Amid Probe of LAPD Sues City

Javier Francisco Ovando, the young man shot by police who was then framed and falsely imprisoned, has sued the city of Los Angeles, alleging that his civil rights were violated, attorneys said Wednesday.

Ovando, 22, who must use a wheelchair because of the shooting, was freed from state prison last month as a result of the ongoing corruption scandal at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart station. He had served nearly three years of his 23-year sentence.

Former LAPD Officer Rafael Perez, the central figure in the probe, has told authorities that he and his then-partner, Nino Durden, shot Ovando and planted a gun on him. The two officers persuaded a jury that Ovando had attacked them.

Perez is cooperating with investigators and identifying what he alleges are a host of crimes and misconduct at the LAPD as part of a plea agreement that cuts time off his sentence for cocaine thefts.

Ovando’s lawsuit, which was filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles on Monday, was widely expected since details of his case were disclosed last month.

Although authorities do not dispute that Ovando was unjustly shot, there are varying accounts of exactly what happened on the night of Oct. 12, 1996.

Perez contends that he and his partner were on an undercover stakeout when he saw Durden having a conversation with Ovando. Durden drew his gun and fired at Ovando, Perez said. Spurred by his partner’s actions, Perez said he did the same.

Ovando describes a far more sinister scenario:

He told police recently that the two officers handcuffed him before shooting him in the chest and head.

Ovando’s memory about the shooting may be called into question, however. Tamar R. Toister, his public defender at the time, said in an interview on the day of his release that Ovando remembered nothing of the shooting at his 1997 trial.

“The last thing he remembered was walking to a liquor store that afternoon,” she said.

In his complaint, which seeks unspecified damages, Ovando alleges that on the night of the shooting he was in an apartment in the 1200 block of South Lake Street about 11 p.m. when LAPD CRASH officers--Perez, Durden, Michael Montoya and another officer--entered the building without a warrant.

Ovando says that the officers handcuffed him and threatened to shoot him. Ovando pleaded for his life, the complaint alleges, but the officers repeatedly shot him. As he lay wounded on the floor, the “[officers] then shot [Ovando] in the head in an effort to ensure that they had killed him,” the complaint states. The lawsuit says the officers “intentionally refrained from providing [Ovando] reasonable, prompt and necessary medical care.”

The complaint further alleges that the officers conspired to cover up the shooting by planting a gun on Ovando, and by filing false reports about the shooting and agreeing to testify against Ovando in court. Two more officers lied on the witness stand about the circumstances surrounding the shooting, the court papers allege.

The suit says the anti-gang CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) unit “employed organized . . . illegal customs and practices of excessive force and illegal searches and seizures, falsification of evidence, filing of false police reports . . . [and] perjury in carrying out their mandate.”

Such misconduct “was encouraged, tolerated and condoned” by some supervisors, according to the lawsuit, which also names former Rampart Division Capts. Richard Meraz and Nick Salicos as defendants.

Ovando’s complaint is not specific about the alleged actions of the individual officers. According to an internal LAPD review of the shooting, and Perez’s confession, only Perez and Durden fired their guns.

Chief Bernard C. Parks and former Chief Willie L. Williams, who headed the department at the time of the shooting, also are listed as defendants.

A spokesman for the city attorney’s office could not be reached for comment.

The suit comes three weeks after attorneys representing Ovando’s 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Destiny, filed a claim against the city, announcing their intention to sue the city and the LAPD for $20 million.