Police Cover-Up Alleged in Shooting of Girl

A 14-year-old foster child was threatening only herself when Ventura police found her holding a knife in May and critically wounded her with gunshots to the stomach, her lawyers and father said Monday.

Officer Kristin Rupp, who shot the girl, has been cleared of wrongdoing. The girl’s trial on one felony count of assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon -- a kitchen knife with an 8-inch blade -- is scheduled to begin next week in Juvenile Court.

Attorneys for the girl, who is identified in court documents as Anna G., held a news conference Monday to rally public support for her defense. They said the girl is innocent and police are accusing her to cover up a rookie officer’s mistake. “We believe that the crime didn’t occur until after the police thought about it awhile,” said lawyer David Brockway of Los Angeles.

The case has drawn the attention of Chinese reporters, who were at the news conference, because the girl was born in China and her father is Chinese. Her mother was last known to be in China, the prosecutor said.

Anna has recovered from her injuries and is currently in Juvenile Hall.

She had been living in foster homes because she and her father fought about a boyfriend he did not approve of, her father said. Court records show that the father was convicted last year of corporal injury to a child. Brockway confirmed that the child is Anna and that she was taken out of his care.

When Anna threatened to kill herself at her Ventura foster home the night of May 5, her foster parents called police. Officers found the girl holding a knife, said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Miles Weiss. Anna ignored officers’ repeated demands to drop the knife and when she advanced toward Rupp, the 23-year-old officer shot her in the abdomen, Weiss said.

The girl, who speaks and understands English, had “ample opportunity” to comply with officers, Weiss said.

“She never dropped the knife until after she was shot” and fell to the kitchen floor, he said.

Her lawyers and father dispute that account, saying she let go of the knife once she saw the officers and never intended to harm police.

Her father said the police should have tried another way to control the emotionally troubled girl, suggesting pepper spray or a stun gun. Anna spent eight days at Ventura County Medical Center, recovering from her wounds.

If found guilty, the girl faces a maximum of four years in custody, but it is unlikely she will be incarcerated, Weiss said. Instead, she would probably enter a treatment program for juvenile criminals.