Man Denies He Tried to Run Officers Down

A former gang member, testifying for the prosecution in the Rampart police corruption trial, denied Wednesday that he tried to run down two officers but said he pleaded guilty to the charges and served a year in jail because even his public defender didn’t believe him.

Raul Rafael Munoz, who used the gang name “Prieto,” also testified that one of the officers kicked him in the groin twice after he was handcuffed. Munoz said he was kicked so hard that he lost control of his bladder and bowels.

Munoz, 27, identified one of the defendants, Sgt. Brian Liddy, as the officer who kicked him. In past statements, the witness acknowledged, he had mistakenly identified another defendant, Officer Michael Buchanan, as the kicker. He said he had confused the two, insisting he was kicked by “the chubby guy.” Liddy, 38, is burly, and Buchanan, 30, is slim.

Four suspended LAPD officers in the Rampart elite anti-gang unit, called CRASH, are on trial, accused of conspiring to obstruct or pervert justice by framing gang members, planting evidence and lying on police reports and in court. Besides Liddy and Buchanan, they are Sgt. Edward Ortiz, 43, and Officer Paul Harper, 33. Three full days of testimony have passed without a single mention of Harper’s name.

Munoz, who was deported after his conviction, was cleared of the charges in February. He is suing the city and the LAPD for false arrest.

Deputy Dist. Attys. Anne Ingalls and Laura Laesecke allege that Liddy and Buchanan exaggerated their injuries and framed Munoz, accusing him of striking them with his pickup truck as CRASH officers broke up a gang meeting the night of July 19, 1996.

The prosecutors allege that Munoz was falsely accused of deliberately steering his truck toward the officers. Police reports said the truck struck Buchanan, who rolled up on the hood and hit his head on the windshield, cracking it. The officers also accused passenger Cesar Natividad of deliberately opening the passenger-side door, knocking Liddy to the ground.

Munoz described the raided gang meeting in the tamest of terms--as a reunion party. And, under cross-examination, he minimized his own gang activity, portraying himself more as a benign gang wannabe who worked two jobs--including as a mall security guard--while attending auto mechanic classes in the San Fernando Valley.

Munoz initially denied being involved in criminal activities and said he didn’t want to know about crimes his fellow gang members were committing. But later, under cross-examination by defense attorney Joel Isaacson, Munoz admitted to a 1989 shooting outside a high school in the San Fernando Valley. He was a juvenile at the time.

In the Rampart incident, Munoz testified that he and Natividad jumped in his truck as a police helicopter lighted up the parking lot where about 40 gang members were congregating. Among those attending, according to testimony, were Temple Street gang members with nicknames such as Wicked, Speedy, Ghost, Diablo and Stymie. Munoz said he never knew their real names.

He testified that his pickup stalled as he tried to get away.

And he told the jury that he saw no officers until after he stepped out of his truck, carrying an unloaded .357-magnum revolver under his jersey. He said he ran between two officers--one of them Liddy--and down the street. He then ducked between two parked cars and ditched the gun in a bush, he said.

Under cross-examination, Munoz acknowledged contradictions between his testimony and a tape-recorded statement he gave LAPD investigators at a hotel in El Salvador in January.

He said he previously told investigators that he didn’t know whether he had hit anyone with his truck that night. And he agreed he’d originally told investigators that his passenger may have opened the door as he drove down the alley where Liddy and Buchanan said they were struck.

But Wednesday, Munoz said he wasn’t sure whether Natividad opened the door. His passenger “was just ready to jump out,” he testified.

As he ran, Munoz said, a police cruiser pulled up at the other end of the alley, blocking him, and an officer pointed a shotgun at him and ordered him to the ground. Munoz said that when he complied, the officer, whom he could not identify, placed the barrel of the shotgun against his head and “indicated to me that he didn’t shoot because there were too many people around.”

As he lay on the ground, Munoz said, Liddy walked up. “I felt a hard kick in between my legs,” he told jurors. “I curled up in a ball because he kicked me hard.”

Then, Munoz said, two officers lifted him up by his arms and walked him to his truck. There, he said, Liddy told him, “Man, you’re in big trouble. You’re in for it now. . . . You just ran down two of my cops.”

Munoz was booked on suspicion of assaulting police officers with a deadly weapon.

He said he wanted to go to trial “because I knew I had a case.” Although police claimed one of the officers had hit his head on Munoz’s windshield, breaking it, Munoz said he knew he could prove he had received a traffic ticket for the cracked windshield two weeks earlier.

Still, he said, his public defender told him a jury would never believe him over two police officers. The public defender told him, “it was a lost case” and urged him: “Take the deal. It’s a good deal. It’s your first offense. You’ll be out in a year,” Munoz said.

“To tell you the truth, I felt like the public defender didn’t believe me,” Munoz said, adding that he accepted the plea bargain because it was part of a package deal allowing co-defendant Natividad, also known as “Joker,” to go free immediately.

“The minute I took the deal, they let Cesar go,” he testified.

Munoz, 27, is now married with a child and works as a welder in El Salvador. His lawyer in the civil case, Gregory W. Moreno, was ejected from the courtroom Tuesday after a police detective and court staff reported that he was making disparaging remarks about the judge. Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor allowed Moreno back into court Wednesday morning, even after he refused to apologize. The judge said she didn’t want to waste the jury’s time by holding a hearing over the incident.