Witnesses Say Officer Killed Unarmed Suspect

In the dramatic shooting incident that cemented the personal bond between two rogue cops linked to an ongoing Los Angeles police corruption scandal, one of the officers gunned down a suspect who never drew a gun, eyewitnesses say.

The two civilian witnesses, who were not interviewed when detectives briefly reopened the case earlier this year as part of a broader corruption probe, deny that alleged drug dealer Jesse Vicencio pulled a gun on Officers Rafael A. Perez and his then-partner David A. Mack.

Rather, the witnesses contend that Mack shot Vicencio without warning, as the alleged drug dealer leaned into the undercover officers’ car. Their version of events, which they say they gave officers the night of the shooting, was repeated to The Times in interviews that began earlier this year.

LAPD investigators initially said they had reexamined the shooting earlier this year and found nothing improper. But after queries from The Times on Wednesday, Cmdr. David J. Kalish, the department spokesman, said the reexamination was only cursory and investigators plan to take a closer look.

The department’s official account of the shooting was that Mack fired in self-defense to save his life and that of Perez as they were being menaced by the gun-wielding Vicencio.

Chief Bernard C. Parks said at a news conference Wednesday that he has formed an internal board of inquiry that will examine, among other issues, the quality of the department’s investigations into officer-involved shootings. The integrity of those investigations has been called into question as a result of allegations by Perez, who is cooperating with investigators to receive a lighter sentence on cocaine theft convictions.

In the case of the Vicencio shooting, both witnesses have personal ties to the dead man. Adam Rollins is Vicencio’s cousin and Manuel Iwabucci is a longtime family friend. Both have had past brushes with the law. And they do not entirely agree on precisely what happened the night of Oct. 26, 1993. They do agree, however, that Vicencio never drew a weapon.

Under normal circumstances, statements from such witnesses weighed against those of the police officers involved would have little influence. But the circumstances in this incident are anything but routine, starting with the officers involved. Perez is the jailed former officer at the center of the ongoing corruption probe. He has already implicated himself and another former partner in an unjustified shooting that left an unarmed man in a wheelchair and falsely imprisoned, and has characterized a second shooting in which a man was killed by fellow officers as unjustified. Both of the shootings were ruled “in policy” at the time by department officials.

Shootings Discussed

Mack was sentenced earlier this month to 14 years in prison for robbing a Bank of America branch of $722,000. In federal court papers filed in connection with the case, his accomplice and mistress of seven years, Errolyn Romero, said Mack had told her about several shootings he had been involved in while an LAPD officer. In one of those shootings, Romero questioned why he killed the suspect.

“Mr. Mack responded by stating that he did not want the person to testify about the circumstances surrounding the shooting,” said the court papers filed by Romero’s attorney, Edi M.O. Faal. “Mr. Mack told Ms. Romero that killing is sometimes necessary because you ‘don’t want to leave witnesses around.’ ”

Mack warned her to keep quiet in the days after the Nov. 6, 1997, bank robbery, the court papers said. “The weak and those who talk too much get eliminated,” Mack allegedly told Romero. Court papers allege that while Mack was in jail awaiting trial in the bank robbery, federal authorities discovered that he was plotting to have Romero killed.

According to an internal LAPD review of the Vicencio shooting, Mack and Perez were working undercover, attempting to buy drugs from street dealers when they encountered the 29-year-old man about 9:15 p.m. in the 2100 block of Cambridge Street. According to the police reports, Vicencio held a chrome pistol at the side of his right leg as he walked up to the car.

As Vicencio approached Mack, who was driving, Perez told Mack that the suspect was carrying a gun, the police report states. Mack, who was accustomed to dealing with armed suspects during undercover assignments, wasn’t particularly alarmed at first, the report says. He told Vicencio that he wanted to buy drugs. Vicencio asked what kind, and Perez told him they wanted $20 worth of rock cocaine.

At this point, according to the report by LAPD investigators, what had been proceeding as a routine drug transaction spun out of control:

“Vicencio looked at the money in his hand, then threw it onto Officer Mack’s lap and said, ‘Nah, man. Are you Bloods or Crips?’ ”

Vicencio, who would test positive during an autopsy for PCP, then became increasingly agitated, the report says. Realizing this, Mack carefully eased his gun out from under his waistband, but left it concealed under his shirt where Vicencio couldn’t see the weapon, the investigators alleged.

As Perez tried to persuade Vicencio that he and Mack were not gang members, Vicencio drew his weapon and pointed it back and forth at the two partners. Mack at this point drew his gun from beneath his shirt, pointed it out the window and fired four shots, the report states.

After the fourth shot, Mack looked up and saw that Vicencio was standing in the middle of the road. Apparently unaffected by the gunshots, according to investigators, Vicencio held onto his gun, and again raised it toward the officers. Mack then pushed his car door open--apparently for use as a shield--stuck his gun out the window and fired five rounds at Vicencio, the report says.

Vicencio then turned to his left and ran, investigators say. But as he fled, he extended his right arm, gun in hand, back toward Mack. Still fearful that the fleeing suspect was about to shoot him, Mack fired four more times, emptying his gun, according to LAPD investigators.

When the dust had settled, Mack had fired 13 rounds. There was no mention in the shooting report that Vicencio, who officers said provoked the shooting, had not fired his gun.

Although Perez has cast suspicion on at least a dozen officers, he has not implicated his friend Mack in any wrongdoing. Though Perez partied with Mack in Las Vegas two days after the bank robbery, he said he had no inkling his former partner was living a life of crime.

In an interview with The Times, Perez insisted the Vicencio shooting was completely within department policy.

“The only thing that I can say about that shooting is that as far as I’m concerned, David Mack was a hero that night,” Perez said. “David Mack saved my life that night.”

Mack’s attorney, Donald M. Re, said his client insists that the Vicencio shooting was within LAPD policy.

But eyewitnesses have maintained since immediately after the shooting that they saw no weapon in Vicencio’s hands.

Adam Rollins, who was 13 at the time of the shooting, said in an interview with The Times that it didn’t happen the way the police reports said it did.

For starters, Rollins said, Mack seemed to know his older cousin.

“He knew Jesse’s name and everything,” said Rollins, now 19. “He said, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ ”

Rollins said Mack asked Vicencio if he was carrying a gun, to which Vicencio responded that he was.

Mack said he had one too, Rollins recalled.

At that point, Rollins said he looked away for a second and that when he turned back toward Jesse, “that’s when the guy [Mack] pulled out a gun. He pulled the trigger, and I heard a loud shot.”

After the shot, Rollins said Jesse spun from the car, with both hands holding his belly.

“He said run--so I ran,” Rollins recalled.

Rollins said Vicencio ran too.

“He just kept running and then I just kept hearing the shots,” the young man said.

After the shooting, Rollins was handcuffed, taken to the police station and interrogated. He said he was confused and crying during much of the interview.

He said that while he admitted that Vicencio said he had a gun, he said he never saw his cousin holding a weapon. In the interview with The Times, Rollins said his cousin’s response to Mack’s query probably was a boast made for protection against men he assumed were criminals. Rollins said he can’t imagine how he would have missed seeing a gun, as he saw both his cousin’s hands holding his belly as he ran from the car in the wake of the shooting.

Iwabucci, 29, a longtime friend of the Vicencio family, agreed with Rollins that Vicencio was unarmed. But his account of the shooting varied from Rollins’. He recalled that both officers fired their guns, not just Mack. And he thought that Vicencio approached the passenger’s side of the car as opposed to the driver’s.

Those discrepancies aside, Iwabucci said the police shot an unarmed man.

“They told me he had a gun. I said that’s impossible.”

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Gang-Related Crime

Gang-related crimes have dropped in the Rampart Division in the last few years. Anti-gang injunctions were enacted there in 1997 and 1998.

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Gang-related crimes per year in Rampart Division

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Total gang-related crimes per year in city of Los Angeles

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Note: Gang-related crimes include homicide, attempted homicide, felony assault, attacks on police officers, robbery, shooting at a home, kidnapping, rape, arson and witness intimidation.

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Source: Los Angeles Police Department