Old Questions Haunt LAPD Anew

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks continues to face probing and logical questions about the LAPD’s fatal shooting of a guest at a Halloween party, a man who was holding a realistic gun replica. The questions raised by this shooting make for a familiar refrain: Wasn’t a less violent outcome possible? Was the amount of force used necessary? Shouldn’t a well-trained officer have handled the situation differently?

These are questions that have haunted the Police Department in past shootings as well. For example, there was the 1999 police killing of a frail and diminutive homeless woman, Margaret Laverne Mitchell, armed only with a screwdriver when she faced off against two LAPD officers. And even when less deadly options were chosen, there sometimes has been a question of whether the force used was appropriate--as in the case of an unarmed 38-year-old mother of four who, according to her lawyers, lost an eye when she was shot with a beanbag shotgun last month. In that case, Officer Craig Marquez, who was responding to a stolen vehicle call, later said he thought the woman was reaching for a weapon.

Chief Parks held a press conference Tuesday to address the autopsy report on actor Anthony Dwain Lee, the Halloween party guest, who was shot by Officer Tarriel Hopper. Lee, whose costume included a replica of a .357 magnum Desert Eagle handgun, was struck three times in the back and once in the back of the head.

The police version of events, expanded upon by Parks Tuesday, was that Hopper walked through the yard around the house where the party was being held and shined a flashlight through the glass door of a bedroom. Parks said Lee, according to a witness, pointed the replica gun at Hopper and took a step toward the glass door. Hopper had no time to shout a warning and opened fire because he felt he was in imminent danger, Parks said.

But doubts obviously remain. Shouldn’t the fact that it was a costume party have figured in the judgments the officer made? Even if the officer assumed Lee was a threat, how wise was it to shoot into a room that contained other party guests? It’s the familiar pattern of these incidents that remains disturbing: The force used must be appropriate to the situation at hand. The press and the public raise questions about these incidents because they evoke the natural response: Wasn’t there a better way?

The completed investigation will document what happened just before, during and after the tragic Halloween shooting. But the city owes a more complete accounting to Angelenos to answer the ultimate question: Is the training of our police officers truly all that it should be?