LAPD Task Force Probes ’95 New Year’s Eve Shooting

Detectives on the Los Angeles Police Department’s corruption task force are investigating a 1995 New Year’s Eve shooting in which officers wounded two men, one of whom had been shooting bullets into the air at midnight to celebrate.

The officers from the Rampart Division’s anti-gang CRASH unit said they returned fire after they came under attack from two armed revelers who were firing shots from a second-floor balcony outside an apartment building west of downtown.

But one officer who has been relieved of duty in connection with the ongoing corruption scandal told The Times through his lawyer that the officers were “hunting” that night, and were not provoked.

Several sources close to the investigation confirm that the police shooting is regarded as “questionable” and is under intense scrutiny by the task force. One source said authorities are looking not only at the officers’ actions in the shooting, but also the involvement of those who conducted the follow-up investigation of the incident and found nothing amiss.

Whether the department has the ability to effectively police its own has been a central question in the wake of the Rampart scandal. If detectives discover that those who investigated the shooting ignored evidence or otherwise acted improperly in an effort to support the officers’ version of events, it would move the scandal beyond the Rampart Division and squarely into Parker Center.

Despite the officers’ claims that they were fired upon, the revelers--who had no criminal records, according to court files--never were charged with attempted murder or even assault. In fact, according to court files, there is no physical evidence that the officers were attacked.

Of the three officers who fired that night, one has since been fired for beating a suspect and another has been relieved of duty in connection with the scandal. Two others who were on the scene are also under investigation.

Shooting Is One of Seven Under Scrutiny

The shooting is one of at least seven under investigation by the Rampart corruption task force. Already, ex-officer-turned informant Rafael Perez, the man at the center of the scandal, has implicated himself and a former partner in the shooting of an unarmed man. Perez has also characterized a second police shooting in which a man was killed as “dirty.” To date, 20 officers have been either relieved of duty, suspended, quit or were fired in connection with the scandal. More than 30 criminal convictions have been overturned as a result of police misconduct.

In the case at hand, officers Brian Hewitt, Daniel Lujan and John Collard were working a special detail aimed at suppressing the gunfire that customarily rings in the New Year in some neighborhoods, according to LAPD documents. About midnight, the officers were in the 1300 block of West 8th Street when they heard numerous shots fired. Nearby, they found a large gathering of people at a party in a yard outside a house on the corner of Linwood Avenue and Witmer Street. As they looked on, the officers heard additional gunfire coming from the area of the party.

The officers got out of their car and walked toward the party, butwalked on the opposite side of the street, using parked cars for cover. They were headed for a van parked directly across the street from the gathering. From there they planned to watch for any sign of additional gunfire.

Just as the officers approached the van, they heard shots fired from multiple weapons directly behind them, LAPD documents state. Believing they had just come under attack from the rear, the officers turned to the south and saw what appeared to be two men firing weapons from a second-story balcony.

Hewitt and Collard drew their 9-millimeter pistols and moved toward a car parked in the driveway of the two-story apartment at 1312 Linwood Ave. Lujan, armed with a shotgun, raced toward the safety of a large concrete pillar at the apartment building next door.

“The officers were only able to detect the silhouettes of two individuals on the landing behind the muzzle flashes. Lujan saw that one of the suspects was holding his arms out and pointed what Lujan believed was a large caliber rifle in the officers’ direction,” according to police documents.

Hewitt, who had taken cover behind the parked car, shouted “Police!” in an attempt to identify himself, but the suspects continued to fire.

Collard also shouted “Police!” as the shooting continued. Collard, fearing for his life--according to police documents--fired two shots at one of the suspects. Seeing that his shots had no apparent effect, he took cover beside Hewitt.

As they crouched behind the parked car, Hewitt and Collard noticed that Lujan had fallen in the front yard of the building next door and thought he had been shot.

Hewitt fired three rounds at the suspects on the balcony. He again shouted “Police!” but the men continued to shoot. Hewitt fired three more shots. Simultaneously, Collard fired “a controlled sequence” of 11 rounds at the suspects, according to police.

Lujan, who had not been shot, but had tripped over a concrete embankment surrounding the lawn of the apartment building next door, twice fired his shotgun at the suspects as he ran for cover.

When the officers ceased fire, the suspects continued to fire for several seconds before fleeing through a side door into the second-story apartment, according to police.

By the time the shooting stopped, four other CRASH officers had arrived at the scene. They huddled and came up with a plan to arrest the suspects. Without calling for backup, four officers ascended the staircase to the balcony outside the apartment into which the shooters had retreated, a tactic later criticized by then-Chief Willie L. Williams in a review of the shooting, which was found in policy.

Though still armed, the suspects who minutes earlier had allegedly been firing on the officers with abandon, offered no resistance. The officers detained Sebastian Delgado, 51, Demetrio Delgado, 18, Ismael Roman, 27, and two women who were in the apartment. The officers recovered two rifles, two handguns, ammunition and more than 70 shell casings.

Sebastian Delgado, who had been shot in the arm, and Demetrio Delgado, who was shot in the leg, were taken to the hospital, then later arrested and booked for assault with a firearm on a police officer. Vicente Roman, though not mentioned in the LAPD report as having been one of those detained, was booked for discharging a firearm in a grossly negligent manner.

Officers’ Version Called Into Question

In court, charges were promptly dismissed against Sebastian Delgado when Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell found in a preliminary hearing that there was no evidence that he had held a weapon that night, much less fired one at police. Ismael Roman testified at the hearing that his brothers Demetrio Delgado and Vicente Roman had been firing guns that night, but never pointed them in the direction of the officers. Rather, Roman said, they were shooting them into the air to celebrate the coming of the New Year.

Two months later, in March 1996, Demetrio Delgado and Vicente Roman pleaded no contest to discharging a firearm in a grossly negligent manner. They were sentenced to probation.

“Based on the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing, it can’t be clearly ascertained that any shots were being fired, indeed, at the police,” said Judge Robert O’Neill.

There are several other factors that tend to call into question the officers’ version of events. Despite what police claim was a barrage of gunfire aimed at them from some 50 feet away, there is no mention in police documents or court files about any bullets being recovered from the car or the concrete column that the officers were using for cover. In fact, there is no mention of any bullets being recovered.

There is also some question as to why, if the officers believed they were truly under attack, they would have risked attempting to arrest armed suspects who were barricaded inside the apartment without calling for backup.

One of the seven officers at the scene, who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity, scoffed at the notion that the shooting was somehow unjustified. He said there was no question he and his partners were under fire, that they could actually feel “air compression” as bullets whizzed past.

“It was a clean shooting,” the officer said.

Previous Times coverage of the Rampart police scandal is available on The Times’ Web site:https://www.latimes.com/rampart