Panel to Probe LAPD’s Shooting of Toddler

Eight legal and law enforcement experts have been named to a panel charged with investigating the killing of a toddler held hostage by her father during a police shootout last month, authorities said Monday.

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton said the panel would examine tactics used by SWAT officers during the July 10 shootout, which resulted in the deaths of 19-month-old Suzie Marie Pena and her father, Jose Raul Pena.

The father, under investigation for allegedly threatening family members, held the girl in his arms while repeatedly firing on officers and civilians. Both were killed by police gunfire when SWAT officers moved in to try to rescue the child.

On Monday, an independent monitor appointed to supervise the Los Angeles Police Department’s compliance with a federal consent decree said Suzie’s death “can only be classified as a tragedy.”

The monitor, Michael Cherkasky, in his quarterly report on consent decree compliance, said he would monitor the LAPD’s review of the incident, but added that “from all indications, the child was put in harm’s way by her father.”

The toddler’s slaying was the second hostage death during a standoff in the 40-year history of the LAPD’s SWAT team. The LAPD is conducting mandatory internal administrative investigations into the incident as it does after all serious shootings involving police. The Department of Justice’s civil rights division also announced earlier that it would conduct a preliminary inquiry into the child’s death.

In addition, Bratton announced shortly after the incident that he would convene a special panel, called a board of inquiry, to examine the officers’ tactics and other factors in the shooting.

An LAPD internal board of inquiry was convened to examine the Rampart corruption scandal in the 1990s.

“For the safety of the public and officers, we need to understand intimately what transpired in that incident,” Bratton said Monday at a news conference in which panel members were announced.

The panel members are: Richard M. Aborn, an attorney who specializes in police integrity issues; attorney Merrick Bobb, who monitors the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and is a police policy expert; William A. Geller, a police use-of-force expert; Phil Hanson, an L.A. County sheriff’s lieutenant and SWAT team supervisor; Gregory M. Longworth, a former New York City police officer and police defense expert; Bernard Melekian, Pasadena police chief; Linda Pierce, a Seattle Police Department assistant chief; and Eugene Ramirez, a lawyer and former prosecutor who has defended SWAT officers.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who also attended the news conference, praised the LAPD for convening the board. “Almost as important as the board of inquiry is the cultural shift this represents,” he said. “The days of closed-door internal investigations that did little to improve public trust are over.”