Cochran Scoffs at LAPD Version of Party Slaying

Attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. on Thursday accused the Los Angeles Police Department and its civilian overseers of twisting evidence to support a police officer’s version of events in the fatal shooting of an actor who allegedly pointed a replica handgun at the officer during a Halloween party last year.

The LAPD concluded that the shooting was within department policy, and a divided Police Commission agreed. Cochran represents the family of the man who was shot, Anthony Dwain Lee.

“If this case is ‘in policy,’ then I’ve got to tell you the policy in this department needs to be changed,” the lawyer said.

During a news conference at his Wilshire Boulevard law office, Cochran showed reporters a diagram he received from the city attorney’s office, showing how Lee was shot three times in the back and once in the back of the head, while still pointing a gun at Officer Tarriel Hopper.

The diagram depicts a figure with his back to Hopper, bent forward at the waist, but with his arm stretched out behind him pointing what turned out to be a movie prop gun in the officer’s direction.

“How much sense does this make?” asked Cochran, who is representing Lee’s family in a civil lawsuit against the LAPD. “Who in their right mind is going to point a toy gun at somebody who is firing real bullets? It flies in the face of everything reasonable.”

Deputy City Atty. Cory Brente, who is defending Hopper and the LAPD, said the diagram Cochran was referring to accounts for only a split second in the shooting and doesn’t suggest that Lee was in that posture for the entire encounter.

What it shows, Brente said, “is that the officer’s version of events is consistent with the physical evidence.”

The full sequence of diagrams, which Cochran did not release at the news conference, begins with Lee and Hopper facing one another through a glass door. In the initial diagrams, Lee is pictured pointing the replica gun at the officer.

Although neither side contends that the officer intended to kill an unarmed man, Lee’s family and lawyer argue that the policeman overreacted, especially given the fact that the shooting occurred at a Halloween party and that officers were at the scene only because neighbors complained about a loud party.

Police and a majority of the members of the civilian Police Commission say that the officer was forced to make a quick decision, and that though it turned out to be tragically wrong, it was understandable given the circumstances.

At the news conference, Cochran was critical not only of the LAPD itself but also of the “supposedly independent” Police Commission, whose members were appointed by Mayor James K. Hahn.

“It’s [sad] to think,” Cochran said, that the commission “would fall for this.”

A commission spokesperson declined to comment on behalf of all commissioners, citing the pending wrongful-death suit. An LAPD spokesman also declined to comment.

Cochran said the shooting was the result of an inexperienced, poorly trained officer trespassing on private property and then overreacting to what he perceived as a threat. The attorney said that, in many ways, he hopes the case goes to trial rather than ends in a settlement.

“This is a case where I think it needs to be played out where people can fully see with their own eyes how they will sometimes try to make black white and day night,” Cochran said. “If they can explain this away, then we’re all going to be in a lot of trouble.”

According to police reports, Hopper and his partner were dispatched to the Benedict Canyon mansion about midnight to investigate the noise complaint. As Hopper searched for the owners of the home, he shined his flashlight into a back bedroom, where he saw Lee and two other men standing.

When the officer peered into the room, he witnessed what he believed was a drug deal between Lee and another man, police reports state. The other man “looked in the direction of Officer Hopper and raised his hands, simultaneously stepping rearward,” according to police documents.

At the same time, Lee turned toward the officer and pulled a foam-rubber, replica .357 magnum from his waistband and pointed it at Hopper, the documents say. In fear for his life, Hopper fired nine rounds at Lee from about six feet away.

Even as he turned or spun away from the officer, Lee continued to point the replica gun at Hopper, according to the police account. The entire shooting lasted about two seconds, police said.

An autopsy report confirmed that Lee was struck three times in the back and once in the back of the head. The autopsy noted alcohol and cocaine in his system. Police said Lee had the drug Ecstasy in his palm after the shooting.

On Tuesday, the Police Commission, in a 4-1 vote, found that Hopper’s use of deadly force was justifiable and within department rules. Commission President Rick Caruso said the case boiled down to the fact that Hopper could not reasonably distinguish the replica gun from a real firearm, and therefore legitimately feared for his life and defended himself.