Defense Loses Bid for Police Records

Personnel records of a Ventura police officer who shot a 14-year-old foster child show no evidence of past encounters involving excessive force, dishonesty or coercion, a judge concluded Thursday.

Attorneys for the girl lost their bid to introduce the documents during a pretrial hearing before Juvenile Court Judge Brian Back. The girl is charged with assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon -- a kitchen knife she had used to threaten suicide in her foster home in May.

The girl was shot three times by Officer Kristin Rupp, who was cleared of any wrongdoing in a departmental review.

Back spent an hour poring over personnel records of Rupp and two other officers who came to the girl’s Ventura foster home on May 5.

None of the records were “even remotely related” to the issues of the case, he said.

Police contend that the distraught girl was shot after refusing to drop the knife and taking what appeared to be a threatening step toward Rupp.

But attorneys for the girl, who is being tried in Juvenile Court, have maintained that the 23-year-old Rupp made a mistake in using deadly force and that other officers on the scene have aided in a cover-up.

“We believe that the officers as a group didn’t follow procedure,” attorney Paul Loh said. “When something goes wrong, there’s a motive to change or modify what happened.”

The girl was raised by her grandmother in China and immigrated two years ago to join her father, who ran a Newbury Park restaurant.

She was placed in foster care after she fought with him over a boyfriend.

Her trial is to begin Monday.