3 Former Oakland Officers Acquitted of Some Charges

A jury Tuesday acquitted three former police officers on charges of beating and framing suspects and deadlocked on 27 other counts, bringing an inconclusive end to the longest criminal trial in Alameda County history.

The conclusion to the yearlong case, likened by one legal expert to “a Rodney King verdict without the riots,” may cement anti-police sentiment in Oakland’s most crime-plagued neighborhoods.

A community concern was that none of the jurors were black but all of the alleged victims were black.

The jurors, at times angry and tearful, had been deliberating since May and on three occasions told Superior Court Judge Leo Dorado that they remained hopelessly deadlocked. He sent them back each time.

On Tuesday, Dorado relented. He accepted the impasse and allowed the beleaguered jurors to leave the courthouse guarded by bailiffs.

“It was my view from the get-go they would fight,” defense attorney Mike Rains said of the jurors. “They would feud and they would hang, and I thought that was probably the best we could see.”

On the advice of their lawyers, the defendants, Matthew Hornung, 31, Clarence Mabanag, 37, and Jude Siapno, 34, showed no emotion during the brief court session.

Authorities believe Frank “Choker” Vazquez, 46, the officers’ alleged ringleader, has fled the country.

The trial focused on a 10-day period in the summer of 2000 in which the four graveyard-shift officers, known as the Riders, made allegedly illegal arrests in the city’s tough northwest corner.

The three officers were arrested after 23-year-old Keith Batt, a rookie officer who was teamed with Mabanag for field training, reported the alleged incidents to police officials before quitting the force.

The officers, one white and two Asian, faced lengthy prison sentences had they been convicted on charges that including kidnapping and falsifying arrest reports -- and beating a handcuffed suspect in the face, stomach, back and legs. They were compared by prosecutors during the trial to “characters in a ‘Dirty Harry’ film.”

Court Date

Jurors on Tuesday found Siapno not guilty of kidnapping and beating, Mabanag not guilty of presenting three false claims, and all three note guilty of conspiring to falsely arrest a suspect.

Though prosecutors were granted an Oct. 15 court date to make their next move, they said they had not yet decided whether to retry the officers.

Kevin V. Ryan, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, said in a statement that the Justice Department would consult with the district attorney and explore the possibility of filing federal civil rights charges against the officers.

Former Alameda County Assistant Dist. Atty. David Hollister, who prosecuted the Riders, said he was disappointed by the outcome. “I thought factually these defendants were guilty,” he said. “I think the evidence proved that.”

Mayor Jerry Brown said the hung jury “pretty well represented the division within the city of Oakland. No group of people in America know more about the Riders’ case than the jury. And they came to their conclusion.”

Oakland police were primed for street unrest after the verdict. Though no trouble was reported, reactions ranged from fury to disbelief. One person was arrested at Tuesday’s hearing, an African American observer who shouted his disapproval before being led away in handcuffs.

“Arrest me. Take me to jail,” the man shouted, glaring at the defendants. “You won’t take them to jail.”

To many blacks in the city -- which is about 38% African American -- Tuesday’s conclusion was a blanket exoneration of police misconduct.

“The message is: If you wear the badge, you can get away with some things,” said Carrie McGathon, an Oakland nurse who said she feared for her grandchildren’s safety because of corrupt cops.

“I think it’s absolutely imperative that they should spend some time in prison. They did many black men wrong,” she said.

Peter Keane, dean of Golden Gate University Law School, said “the kind of conduct that occurred and the kind of evidence that was presented” was comparable to the Rodney King beating case. But given the criminal records of key prosecution witnesses, jurors could not clear the “beyond a reasonable doubt” hurdle necessary to convict.

“It is problematic,” Keane said. “I think you’ll still have a festering discontent on the part of the Oakland minority communities that there are two standards of justice -- one for members of their community and the other for police officers.”

The seven-man, five-woman panel was drawn from Alameda County, whose population is 14% African American. McGathon, among others, said she believed that the absence of blacks on the jury affected the outcome.

Jurors had reached conclusions on only four counts when they first tried to end deliberations. They managed to reach not-guilty verdicts on four more counts and had been stuck in that holding pattern since Sept. 11, despite the judge’s insistence on two occasions that they persevere.

The partial mistrial comes a year after a civil jury awarded $10.9 million to 119 mostly black residents who were allegedly beaten and falsely arrested by the Riders.

But the criminal case derailed. Based on scores of notes jurors passed to Judge Dorado, prosecutors had speculated before Tuesday that the panel was stymied over the issue of “noble cause corruption.”

Their theory: In a city battling rising crime, the jury found it hard to convict officers who employed “street justice” to arrest unsavory characters with lengthy police records. Rather than personal gain, that theory went, the officers were overzealous in carrying out orders to reduce street crime.

But defense attorneys Tuesday dismissed that theory, saying that some jurors did not believe Batt, the prosecution’s star witness, or several victims who took the stand. They said the officers were guilty of nothing more than aggressive police work.

Reinstatement Bid

“One or two of the jurors were even rolling their eyes” as victims testified, said defense attorney Rains. “They didn’t believe what they were hearing.”

Though defense attorneys said they will try to get the officers reinstated, Oakland Police Chief Richard Word was adamant that they were gone for good. “I stand by my decision to terminate these officers,” he said in a statement after the verdict.

The attorneys criticized the Oakland Police Department’s internal affairs unit, which they said conducted a witch hunt. Said Rains: “Because of city politics ... they focused on three guys they determined to be rotten apples out of the whole basket.”

But Alameda County Dist. Atty. Tom Orloff thanked former Oakland police trainee Batt, now an officer in nearby Pleasanton. At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, he described their initial meeting before the trial to see if “that young man had the fortitude” to withstand the trial. “I looked him in the eye and said, ‘Keith, if you were my son I’d be extremely proud of you.’ I still feel that way.”

Both sides thanked a jury that was impaneled more than a year ago and had deliberated for 56 days.

Defense attorneys described the jury’s fractured months of deliberations, saying that the panel almost immediately broke into two camps that one juror described as liberal law enforcement critics and pro-police conservatives.

More than once, several jurors nearly came to blows. At one point, Dorado warned jurors against “name-calling, rudeness or antisocial behavior.”

Rains said the panel’s experience exemplifies why “nobody ever wants to serve on a jury. They were told the trial would last three to six months and it took well over a year. Anyone with contacts in Sacramento should suggest a lifetime exemption so these people never have to serve on another jury again.”

The trial lasted so long that it saw the birth of two babies -- one to a former juror and the other to a defendant’s wife.

In the end, emotional jurors were adamant that their identities not be released.

Dorado -- who declined to comment on the case -- instructed his clerk to strike their names from the record. And he ordered court artist Joan Lynch to avoid any likenesses of jurors in her renditions.

After the civil verdict, Oakland police were ordered to implement a series of reforms. But some residents said they had not seen any progress.

“People see these kind of wayward police in many inner-city communities and we’re sick of it,” said Atiya Rashada, 28. “We want to see change, to see good relations between authorities and the people they patrol. To that end, this jury decision was a blatant slap in the face.”