Shootout Case Jury Asks to Rehear Testimony

Jurors deliberating over whether Los Angeles police intentionally allowed a wounded bank robber to bleed to death asked Tuesday to rehear portions of trial testimony.

The federal civil rights suit accuses the city and two now-retired police officers of withholding medical aid from Emil Matasareanu after his capture in the 1997 North Hollywood bank robbery shootout.

Wearing body armor and firing from military assault rifles, Matasareanu, 30, and his partner, Larry Philips Jr., 26, wounded 11 police officers and six citizens after a botched robbery at a Bank of America branch on Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

Philips died in the 44-minute gun battle. Matasareanu, wounded 29 times, bled to death in the street about an hour after his capture.

The 12-member panel returned to court Tuesday, their second day of deliberations, to rehear portions of testimony by a Fire Department emergency medical technician and the entire testimony of defendant John Futrell.

Futrell, a patrol officer at the time of the shootout, was assigned to watch over the wounded Matasareanu by a detective in charge of the crime scene.

Attorney Stephen Yagman, who is suing on behalf of Matasareanu’s two sons, has accused Futrell of calling off an ambulance that was dispatched to pick up the injured gunman.

Futrell testified that the ambulance he called off was searching for a wounded officer at another location. His defense lawyer, Bradley Gage, said Tuesday that he was encouraged by the jury’s request to hear all of Futrell’s testimony.

Gage complained that Yagman and his co-counsel, Victor Sherman, had muddled his client’s account during their closing arguments to the jury last week.

Yagman, meanwhile, told reporters that he, too, was encouraged by the jury’s request to rehear testimony.

“I think we’ve already won, just by the fact that this jury has deliberated for two days,” said Yagman. “Each day the jury is out is another victory.”

But Yagman said he has little confidence that the jury will ultimately find in favor of his clients, given the despicable conduct of their father.

“This has always been an unwinnable case,” he said. “I took it because I thought it was morally the right thing to do. Somebody has to stand up to these cops. I’m the attorney for the damned, and I like that.”

In addition to Futrell’s testimony, the jury asked to listen to portions of the testimony of Fire Department emergency medical technicians Jesse Ortiz and Allen Skier. The panel heard Ortiz’s testimony Tuesday and will hear Skier’s today.

Futrell’s co-defendant, retired LAPD Det. James Vojtecky, is accused in the lawsuit of ordering Skier and Ortiz to “get the . . . out of here” before they could pick up Matasareanu.

On the witness stand, Vojtecky disputed the medical technicians’ account. He said he became incensed when they started to leave without Matasareanu and demanded that they send for another ambulance to take the prisoner to a hospital.

Matasareanu died before another ambulance arrived.