Rampart Testimony Presents 2 Versions of 1996 Gang Sweep

Testimony at the Rampart police corruption trial focused Monday on a July 1996 gang sweep that led to tainted assault convictions against two gang members. They were later exonerated of trying to run down two police officers with a pickup truck.

Seeking to prove that Officers Brian Liddy and Michael Buchanan lied in their police reports and in court, Deputy Dist. Attys. Anne Ingalls and Laura Laesecke called a young woman and a gang member to the stand. Later, Ingalls and another prosecutor read the description Buchanan gave of the event at a preliminary hearing in August 1996.

The accounts varied.

The young woman, who grew up in gang territory but denies associating with any gangs, and a gangster who calls himself “Shady” testified that they watched the pickup speed down the alley, illuminated by a police helicopter, but didn’t see it swerve or hit anyone.

Veronica Polanco, 23, and Walfrido Lamotte, 22, testified that the truck driven by gang member Raul Munoz never hit Liddy or Buchanan. They said they never saw anyone fall to the ground.

Their story supports that of Munoz, who along with Cesar Natividad pleaded guilty to assaulting the officers. In testimony last week, Munoz said he pleaded guilty because no one would believe his word over that of the two officers. His conviction was reversed earlier this year--one of about a hundred tainted convictions overturned in the wake of the Rampart scandal.

On trial, accused of conspiring to obstruct or pervert justice, are Liddy, 38, and Buchanan, 30, as well as Officer Paul Harper, 33, and their supervisor, Sgt. Edward Ortiz, 43.

The four are accused of framing gang members, planting evidence, and lying on police reports and in court.

Munoz, a gang member who went by the nickname “Prieto,” denied hitting the officers during testimony. His account is supported by Polanco’s and Lamotte’s testimony. The three directly contradict the version of events Buchanan gave at the preliminary hearing for Munoz and Natividad.

According to the officer’s testimony, read Monday in court, Buchanan was hit first, and then his partner, by a truck traveling about 25 mph down an alley. Buchanan testified at the 1996 hearing that he could see the driver and his hands on the wheel.

“The truck struck me on the left knee,” he said, adding that he “rolled over onto the left side of the hood,” then striking his head on the windshield before falling.

The truck then immediately “steered toward my partner,” Liddy, about 10 feet away. “I observed Officer Liddy sidestep to his left,” Buchanan testified, adding that he saw the passenger-side door open. Liddy, he said, was limping afterward.

Lamotte, who took the stand in blue pajamas stamped “Los Angeles County Jail,” is serving time for robbery. He testified that he never saw the truck’s passenger door open.

Polanco was less certain.

She testified that the officers might have stepped or jumped back to avoid being hit, but the truck did not strike them. She waffled on whether the truck’s passenger-side door opened.

Both witnesses gave conflicting testimony when defense attorneys cross-examined them about their earlier statements in court and to police investigators.

Prosecutors signaled Monday that they might rest their case by week’s end. However, they still won’t say whether they will call Rafael Perez, the disgraced former officer who, caught stealing cocaine from evidence lockers, turned informant, setting off the yearlong Rampart scandal. About 70 officers are said to be under suspicion, and the city faces millions of dollars in lawsuits from the wrongfully accused, including Munoz.