Inquiry Says LAPD Withheld Key Details

Los Angeles police officials failed to disclose key information about a 1999 officer-involved shooting to members of the city’s civilian Police Commission who were responsible for reviewing and ruling on the case, an investigation by the commission’s inspector general found.

The confidential 32-page report by Inspector General Jeffrey C. Eglash criticizes Chief Bernard C. Parks and his chief of staff, Deputy Chief David J. Gascon, for failing to “meet their responsibility of providing accurate and complete information to the commission at all times.”

“This case highlights a failure of communication between the chief of police and members of his command staff that resulted in the commission not knowing facts relevant to ... the shooting at issue,” Eglash wrote in a summary of his investigation.

The shooting in question occurred Feb. 8, 1999, and involved a pair of officers known on the streets of the LAPD’s Southeast Division as “Batman and Robin.”

During the incident, Officer William Ferguson, known as Batman, fired two shots at a 14-year-old who allegedly pointed a gun at him through the window of crack house. Both shots missed.

The Police Commission, based on a recommendation by Parks, concluded in February 2000 that the shooting was within department guidelines.

Eighteen months later, commissioners learned from a report in The Times that department officials had not disclosed important details about the shooting prior to the commission’s vote, including the fact that the officers were under investigation for allegedly having planted a weapon at the scene. Commissioners were also unaware that investigators had served a search warrant on Ferguson’s locker shortly after the shooting and discovered a replica weapon that one detective believed was “to be used as planted evidence,” according to a search warrant affidavit.

While Eglash’s report, which was obtained by The Times, said his investigation uncovered information suggesting that Parks may have known that relevant facts were not shared with the commission, he concluded there was “no direct evidence” to prove it.

Additionally, Eglash concluded that the department’s investigation of the shooting was so badly botched, leaving so many unanswered questions, that it would be pointless for the commission to re-evaluate its original finding that the shooting broke no LAPD rules.

Lead Investigator’s Work Criticized

The inspector general’s report also condemned the department’s shooting investigation as “incomplete, conclusory and inaccurate, in part.” The lead detective’s work in the investigation was characterized as “uninformative and unreliable.”

Parks, who was recently denied a second five-year term in office, and Gascon, who is seen as a potential candidate to replace Parks, both declined to comment for this report.

The five-member commission is expected to discuss the inspector general’s report in closed session within the next few weeks.

The report is one in a long series of LAPD analyses by Eglash that have put him at odds with senior Police Department officials. Parks has often dismissed the inspector general’s work as incomplete or biased, a sentiment shared by other top-ranking LAPD officers but not by some of the department’s most prominent critics.

Residents of the house where the shooting took place immediately disputed the officers’ version of events, describing a dramatically different encounter in which the police banged on their doors and windows and shouted out rival gang slogans.

A young woman claimed that as she attempted to flush a tray full of rock cocaine down the toilet, an officer appeared in the bathroom window and ordered her to stop. When she kept flushing down the drugs, she claimed, the officer shot her, the bullet grazing her head.

An apparent gunshot immediately followed by a woman screaming is captured on an audiotape of a 911 call made by someone inside the house that night. None of the officers present claimed to have fired the shot or to have heard it, according to police documents.

The woman’s allegation, made on the night of the shooting, was not addressed in the officer-involved shooting team’s investigation.

By the time internal affairs investigators interviewed the woman months later, the house had burned down.

After the shooting, several witnesses accused the police of planting a gun in the house to justify their actions.

According to Eglash, the lead investigator in the case, Det. Wallace Montgomery, “did not conduct a thorough investigation, and at times, overstated the evidence” in favor of the police. Montgomery, Eglash added, “ignored any evidence that raised questions about his theory and similarly ignored the statements of the civilian witnesses.”

Montgomery, in a brief interview with The Times, disputed the inspector general’s findings. “I disagree. Period,” Montgomery said. The detective declined to comment further, saying he was under orders from the chief not to discuss any officer-involved shooting with reporters.

Eglash’s specific orders from the Police Commission were to determine whether important information was withheld from the commission; whether there was sufficient new information for commissioners to change their initial assessment that the shooting was within departmental rules; and whether any department policies should be changed as a result of the incident.

After a five-month investigation, Eglash concluded that there was “no doubt” that “relevant and material” information known by top department officials was not shared with the Police Commission.

Even so, he concluded there were still too many questions left unanswered to determine what occurred that night. As a result, he said, there is not enough evidence to support a revision of the commission’s initial “in-policy” finding.

As for policy changes, Eglash noted that the department already was developing a new protocol aimed at prioritizing investigations dealing with potential criminal conduct by officers during police shootings.

The bulk of the inspector general’s report dealt with what police officials knew about the shooting and when they knew it.

One important issue was whether Parks or Deputy Chief Gascon were aware that there was a pending criminal case against Ferguson and Officer Jeffrey Robb at the time the Police Commission was asked to review the shooting.

After the inquiry was disclosed in The Times last August, both men told commissioners they were unaware of any such investigation, according to Eglash’s report.

The inspector general, however, concluded that “it appears that Deputy Chief Gascon was aware that Officers Ferguson and Robb had been referred to the district attorney’s office for prosecution prior to the adjudication of the shooting.”

That finding was based largely on a handwritten memo by Cmdr. James S. McMurray, who was then in charge of the LAPD’s internal affairs division.

In the memo, dated Nov. 30, 1999, McMurray indicates that he briefed Gascon on the fact that the district attorney’s office had requested a copy of the LAPD’s shooting investigation report as part of a criminal investigation of Ferguson and Robb. McMurray also wrote in the memo that he provided a copy of the district attorney’s request for the shooting report to Gascon to forward to Parks.

That was two months before the Police Commission was presented with Parks’ recommendation that the shooting be found “in policy.”

Claim of Planted Gun Addressed

Eglash’s report also addressed the statements of an LAPD sergeant who claimed he witnessed Ferguson plant a gun inside the house after the shooting.

According to Eglash, Sgt. Warren “Ken” Brooks has made at least five statements--to LAPD officials and the inspector general’s staff--about what he saw the night on the shooting, and all of those statements were “different in material respects.” As a result, Eglash concluded, Brooks’ statements were not credible.

In November, the city agreed to pay $1.7 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit against Ferguson, Robb, the LAPD and the city. The suit alleged, among other things, that the shooting was unjustified and covered up, and that Ferguson and Robb later framed two young men on drug charges a week after the shooting in the house where it took place.

Both Ferguson and Robb declined to testify in the civil case, citing their constitutional rights against self-incrimination. Lawyers for both officers have said they deny any wrongdoing in the case.

Facing disciplinary action, Robb resigned from the LAPD in 2000.

Ferguson, who was arrested five times on felony charges before he was hired by the LAPD, is suspended without pay.

He is also a suspect in a string of robberies of drug dealers along with his friend and former LAPD Officer Ruben Palomares, who recently pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in San Diego.