Suit Could Put Limits on Use of SWAT Teams

In a case that could hold broad implications for the use of SWAT teams in California’s war on drugs, an attorney for the family of a Modesto boy killed four months ago during a SWAT drug raid has dismissed subsequent policy changes by Modesto police as inadequate.

Attorney Arturo Gonzalez, who won a $12.5-million judgment from the tiny city of Dinuba, Calif., in a 1997 SWAT shooting, said he will file a federal lawsuit in the Modesto case.

Gonzalez said he has two goals: to obtain compensation for the family of 11-year-old Alberto Sepulveda, and to force Modesto police to halt all raids like the one that led to the child’s death.

The boy was killed Sept. 13, after a special weapons and tactics team forced its way into his family’s home to serve a federal arrest warrant on his father, Moises Sepulveda, in a drug trafficking case. In what police describe as an accident, Alberto was hit in the back by a blast from a shotgun trained on him by a Modesto officer, and died instantly.

Modesto Police Chief Roy Wasden said last week that results of the department’s investigation into the shooting were not conclusive, and did not rule out the possibility that Officer David Hawn inadvertently pulled the trigger. More likely, however, investigators said, is that a knife carried in Hawn’s vest pocket bumped the trigger and caused the gun to discharge, Wasden said.

A report summarizing the investigation, which also faulted federal drug agents for poor surveillance before the raid, outlined changes aimed at preventing such incidents, including a ban on equipment that could protrude from a SWAT officer’s clothing, and stricter guidelines for assisting other agencies in serving warrants.

Wasden also promised, without specifics, a thorough review of how Modesto uses its 17-member, part-time SWAT team.

“We’re going to be asking a lot more questions and changing our mind-set about a lot of this,” Wasden said last week.

But that is the key issue, Gonzalez and others said. It is certain to play a central role in the lawsuit the attorney plans to file in federal court in Fresno.

“There was a series of errors that led to this boy’s death,” said Gonzalez, whose case in Dinuba led to the disbanding of that city’s paramilitary unit. “But the main thing is, we just cannot be using SWAT teams for the service of routine warrants.”

Academics such as Peter Kraska, a criminology professor at Eastern Kentucky University and an expert on SWAT teams, agreed.

Kraska praised the Modesto police chief for instituting the reforms and for the responsive tone of the report. But the changes, at least for now, do not go far enough, he said.

“Calling this shooting an accident implies a lack of negligence, a sense that no one was really responsible,” said Kraska, who has studied the growing use of police paramilitary units across the country. “But even accidents can harbor an element of negligence. The question really is should the SWAT team have been there in the first place, in that house, in that situation?”

The report on the case was completed in December but held for release in the hope that it could be made public along with investigations by the state attorney general and the Stanislaus County district attorney, Wasden said. But those are not yet complete, officials said.

Latinos Critical of Police

The boy’s shooting shocked and angered many Modesto residents, and created a rift--now beginning to heal--between much of the city’s large Latino community and its Police Department. It also drew attention to what Kraska, Gonzalez and others call a disturbing trend: The tendency of law enforcement agencies nationwide to rely increasingly on paramilitary units to serve warrants in drug cases.

Law enforcement officials respond that the units are necessary, especially in California’s Central Valley, where they are considered a key weapon in the fight against the area’s escalating methamphetamine problem. The region is considered a primary manufacturing and distribution center for the drug.

“We cannot curtail law enforcement in the war on drugs because it is such a serious problem around here,” said Juan Alvarez, a Modesto Community College professor and the leader of the city’s Hispanic Leadership Council. “But the methods and tactics have to be looked at carefully. We hope that’s what this report will mean.”

The raid on the Sepulveda home was one of 14 conducted jointly on Sept. 13 by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI and the Stanislaus County drug enforcement agency as the culmination of a 19-month federal investigation, Modesto police said.

The federal agents had requested that SWAT teams enter and secure each residence before the warrants were served, and warned that the suspects, including Moises Sepulveda, should be considered armed and dangerous. The information gathered about Sepulveda, who owns an auto shop in Modesto and has denied guilt, was “minimal,” last week’s report stated.

Asked by a Modesto SWAT commander whether children were likely to be present in the home, federal officials replied “none known,” the report stated. If officers had been aware that children could be in the house, they would have approached it differently, Wasden said.

From now on, Modesto police will conduct their own investigation before deciding whether to cooperate with outside agencies in serving warrants, Wasden said, but insisted that his criticism was pointed mainly at himself, not at federal agents involved in the case.

Alberto was killed as he lay stretched out on his bedroom floor, complying with Hawn’s orders, as other officers rounded up his father, mother and brother. Immediately after the gun discharged, Hawn exclaimed that his finger was not on the trigger, police said. The shooting left the veteran officer “bewildered” and “emotionally destroyed,” the report stated.

Hawn was placed on leave after the shooting and has since been assigned to other duties within the department. He has rejected all interview requests.

No drugs or weapons were discovered in the Sepulveda home. Moises Sepulveda was arrested, charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamines and released on bail. He has hired attorneys to represent him in his criminal case as well as the civil suit he expects to file this week.

The boy’s shooting left deep scars within the family, the community and the Police Department.

“I think we’re all still getting over it,” said Balvino Irizarry, a former city councilman. “We know a little more now about how it happened but we all have to make sure it can never happen again.”