Officer Denies Knowing Bandit Was Near Death

The former Los Angeles police officer who stood guard over a dying bank robber after a running gun battle three years ago in North Hollywood testified Thursday in federal court that he never saw any serious wounds on the suspect’s body and didn’t know he was fatally hurt.

John Futrell, 50, a retired patrol officer from the LAPD’s West Valley station, testified that three times he tried to call an ambulance for 30-year-old Emil Matasareanu, who lay handcuffed and face-down, “thrashing” in the street. Matasareanu bled to death during the hour he lay in the street without receiving medical attention.

Futrell, a defendant in a civil rights case filed on behalf of Matasareanu’s sons--Emil Jr., 8, and Alexander, 4--was the second witness as the trial of the controversial lawsuit began in U.S. District Court.

The officer was preceded to the stand by Los Angeles Times photographer Carolyn Cole. Judge Christina A. Snyder earlier had ruled that Cole could be called only to verify taking a photograph of Matasareanu lying in the street while Futrell leaned over him. Cole provided that testimony.

Futrell said that at the time the picture was shot, he was advising Matasareanu, “Try not to move around so much. You’ll only make it worse. An ambulance is on the way for you.”

As the witnesses testified Thursday, an enlarged copy of the dramatic photograph stood on an easel halfway between the witness stand and the jury box. Futrell testified that the photo probably was taken about 10:45 a.m. Feb. 28, 1997. According to testimony, Matasareanu was pronounced dead about 25 minutes later.

Futrell told jurors that he called for an ambulance three times between 10:05 and 10:50 a.m. But under questioning by attorneys, he later conceded that he actually canceled an ambulance in the first call, never got through on the second call and advised dispatchers on the third call to send an ambulance “when one is available.”

The officer, at the time a 26-year veteran, said he arrived at the crime scene near the Bank of America at Victory and Laurel Canyon boulevards shortly before 10 a.m. Half an hour later, he was guarding the fallen suspect.

Futrell said he made the radio call canceling the ambulance for Matasareanu after hearing another officer screaming over the police radio for medical assistance at another spot where there were several wounded officers and citizens.

“I advised them to cancel that ambulance at my location. I had no officers or civilians down, suspect only,” he said. Later he said he made the call to avoid confusion and make the best use of limited resources.

“It was nonstop chaos on the radio. It was one scream after another,” recalled Futrell, a beefy, red-faced man with a trim mustache.

A later request for an ambulance for Matasareanu apparently did not go through, he said. He called again for one at 10:50 a.m., he testified, recalling that he said: “As soon as you have an ambulance available, respond to my location . . . for a downed suspect.”

Futrell testified, “When I requested the ambulance, he was alive and looking at me.” A few minutes later, he said, “I noticed he had stopped moving and he turned his head away from me, just a few minutes before 11 a.m.”

Asked if he realized the man at his feet was dying, Futrell responded, “No.” The only wounds he recalled seeing were on the suspect’s ankles.

Stephen Yagman and Victor Sherman, attorneys for the Matasareanu children, showed the jury a police videotape that depicts Futrell and another defendant, retired Det. James Vojtecky, standing around the fallen suspect, who appears to be writhing and kicking. A large wound is visible on the man’s lower back, and a small stream of blood is flowing from beneath his body. His pants around the gaping wound are soaked with blood.

Futrell said he never saw the wound. He described the stream of blood, which eventually flowed to the curb, as “a bloodstain.”

The plaintiffs allege that police violated Matasareanu’s civil rights by failing to promptly summon medical attention. They charge that police let him bleed to death in the street from wounds that would not have been life threatening if treated promptly.

Attorneys for the city and the officers say Matasareanu brought his death upon himself by creating a scene of chaos and fear.

The lawyers laid out their cases in opening statements, describing the terror that descended on the neighborhood as the two foiled bank robbers, dressed in body armor and carrying machine guns, fired indiscriminately at cars, buildings and people.

The issue: Were the officers solely heroes who saved police and civilian lives by containing the threat posed by the gunmen’s spray of 1,100 armor-piercing bullets? Or did officers take the law into their own hands, callously and deliberately letting Matasareanu slowly bleed to death from 29 gunshot wounds?

The lawyers told the six men and six women on the jury that they will hear tapes of police radio calls, view television videotapes of the dramatic shootout and hear from some of the hundreds of officers who swarmed the area.

In an opening statement lasting less than two minutes, Yagman admitted that his client’s father “did a very bad thing. He robbed a bank and shot a lot of people.”

But, Yagman told jurors, Officers Vojtecky and Futrell steered ambulances away from the dying gunman and toward less seriously wounded people. He quoted Vojtecky as telling one ambulance crew to “get the . . . out of here.”

Attorney Sherman, representing the gunman’s younger son, told jurors that testimony from a medical expert will show that Matasareanu would have survived his wounds had he received prompt medical attention. But lawyers for the city and the two officers said the gunman could not have survived, even at a hospital.

Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent, who is defending Vojtecky and the city, called the shootout “the LAPD’s finest day.”

Lawyer Yagman had subpoenaed photographer Cole to testify on what she saw or heard when she took the picture of Matasareanu. Outside court, her lawyer, Glen A. Smith, said: “A reporter doesn’t want to be viewed as a tool of the defense or the plaintiff. They have plenty of witnesses. There is no need for [Cole] to testify.”