Suit Targets Special LAPD Unit That Killed 2 Robbery Suspects

Civil rights lawyer Stephen Yagman filed a $50-million lawsuit Wednesday against members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s controversial Special Investigations Section over a shooting in Reseda last year that left two suspected robbers dead.

The federal suit, brought on behalf of one man’s heirs, charges that the two suspects posed no serious threat when SIS officers cornered them after the robbery and opened fire.

Police said Jose Rafael Figueroa, 24, and Mario Guerrero, 23, were reaching for their waistbands when SIS detectives fired in self-defense.

Neither man had a gun on him, authorities acknowledged later, although a handgun, which had not been fired, was found on the front seat of their car.

A coroner’s preliminary autopsy found that Figueroa and Guerrero were shot in the back, further fanning a long-running controversy over the special unit’s tactics.

The U.S. attorney’s office asked the FBI to look into the shooting for possible civil rights violations. That investigation is continuing.

An LAPD spokesman said Wednesday that the department is still conducting its administrative review of the shooting. He declined comment on Yagman’s lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of Figueroa’s heirs.

The SIS is the special unit that LAPD detectives turn to when they believe they have identified a criminal but lack evidence to file charges. Squad members then tail the suspect, often for weeks, hoping to catch him in the act.

Since the unit was established more than 30 years ago, its members have engaged in more than 50 gun battles, killed at least 34 suspects and wounded dozens of others. The squad has been credited with capturing some of Los Angeles’ most notorious criminals, including the Alphabet Bomber, the Freeway Strangler and Ennis Cosby’s killer.

This is the latest of several lawsuits filed by Yagman against the SIS, which he describes as a death squad.

According to this suit, an SIS surveillance team believed that Figueroa and Guerrero were about to rob the Flymoon Travel Service in Granada Hills on Aug. 14, but made no effort to stop them, despite the risk to a customer and an employee inside.

After the holdup, the undercover officers followed the pair to a house on Hatton Street in Reseda, where they boxed them in with their cars and proceeded to “murder” them, the suit charges.

The LAPD said after the shooting that SIS officers had watched members of a robbery ring case four travel agencies the day before and did not know the Flymoon robbery was happening because the travel agency is in a mall and not visible from the street.

A police spokesman said the two dead men and seven alleged confederates arrested that day were linked to at least 25 travel agency robberies, mostly in the San Fernando Valley. The group allegedly stole blank airline tickets during armed, daylight robberies.

The federal lawsuit also names Mayor Richard Riordan, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, City Atty. James K. Hahn and members of the City Council and Police Commission as defendants.

City officials are accused of being derelict in failing to rein in or disband the SIS.