D.A. Won’t Try Officer in Flashlight Beating Case

Citing insufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the district attorney’s office said Thursday that it would not file charges against a Los Angeles police officer who was videotaped hammering a car thief with a metal flashlight in June.

In a decision that brought swift condemnation from black activists and Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, county prosecutors said they could not prove that the pummeling was criminal. Prosecutors said the LAPD must now determine whether the officer should face discipline in the arrest of Stanley Miller, 37, of Compton.

Miller’s arrest in Compton after a high-speed 21-mile car chase and foot pursuit attracted global attention when it was broadcast worldwide, one of a string of videotaped conflicts between police officers and black suspects dating to the 1991 beating of Rodney G. King.

Prosecutors have found it hard to win convictions in police brutality cases, even with videotaped evidence. The D.A.’s announcement comes amid a heated mayoral race in which incumbent Hahn has studiously courted the black community.

“We rejected the case against Officer John Hatfield because there is insufficient evidence to prove that the force used by him was without lawful necessity,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Margo Baxter in her evaluation of the incident. She said the video “doesn’t tell the whole story.”

The tape showed Hatfield, who is Latino, repeatedly striking and kicking at Miller, who is black, after the suspect raised his arms in apparent surrender and was brought to the ground by other officers.

Baxter wrote that during the half-hour chase, Hatfield heard from a fellow officer that the suspect might be armed. She said that when the car chase turned into a foot pursuit, Hatfield saw Miller struggle with another officer. Her report relates the assertion by several officers at the scene that a third officer yelled, “Gun!”

Those circumstances are not on the videotape, she said, but are relevant in judging whether Hatfield’s actions were criminal. “At the time he came across the suspect, he believed he had a suspect with a gun,” Baxter said. No gun was ever found.

On Thursday, another prosecutor said Miller’s injuries were also a key factor in their decision.

The report said that despite a battery of medical tests, he was never treated with anything more potent than Tylenol and Motrin.

“The amount of force used was minimal and reasonable under the circumstances,” said R. Dan Murphy, lead prosecutor in the D.A.’s Justice System Integrity Division, which investigates police misconduct.

At a news conference in front of the LAPD’s 77th Street Station in South Los Angeles on Thursday, Hahn took issue with the decision by Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley.

“Let me be clear: I do not agree with that,” Hahn said. “I saw what I saw.”

He was followed at the microphone by community activists who condemned the decision of prosecutors in stronger terms.

“This does not help,” said John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League. “It creates a level of cynicism that is not healthy.” He said the decision reflected a “double standard of justice: The deck is stacked in favor of police.”

Chief William J. Bratton told reporters Thursday that he considered officers’ tactics in the case “awful” but would not prejudge their actions.

“This matter is a long way from being concluded,” Bratton said at news conference downtown. “It is very disturbing. Like myself, I ask you to withhold judgment on it before we conduct our” administrative investigation.

The LAPD expects to complete that inquiry and have a full report to Bratton in a little more than a month. Ultimately, the chief has the authority to decide on discipline, subject to review by an LAPD board of rights. Such boards, consisting of two commanding officers and a civilian, are convened for each required case and can contravene Bratton’s decisions. Bratton can lessen any discipline ordered by a board of rights but not increase it.

A source close to the internal investigation said the case could be before Bratton within six weeks.

Of nine LAPD personnel at the arrest scene, Hatfield was considered the only target for possible criminal prosecution. He and five other officers have been assigned to home duty pending the outcome of the department’s investigation. Two others have been assigned to administrative duty and one has returned to regular duty.

Despite their decision not to file charges, prosecutors raised concerns about the officers’ actions, saying the police report on the incident contained errors about key facts. Those include the place where an item -- wire cutters -- that could have been perceived as a weapon was recovered, and statements that contradict what the videotape shows.

“Some officers’ statements differed greatly from the videotape to the point where it would be difficult to say it was innocent misrecollection,” Baxter said.

On another key point, the report said none of the six civilian eyewitnesses could confirm the assertion of officers that they heard a fellow officer shout, “Gun!” -- an alert some officers said could have justified Hatfield’s rough treatment of Miller.

Historically, criminal cases against police officers have been difficult to win, and prosecutors are often reluctant to take them to trial, legal experts said. Most recently, Cooley’s office twice failed to gain conviction of a former Inglewood police officer and his partner who were caught on videotape roughing up a teenager. Jurors deadlocked at both trials.

Last month, after prosecutors refused to try the case a third time, a civil jury awarded the two men $2.4 million, finding that they had been unfairly disciplined by the Inglewood Police Department. In their civil suit, the officers claimed that they were discriminated against because they were punished more harshly than a black officer who also struck the suspect.

“It’s hard to get convictions in these cases,” said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor. “Think back to Rodney King. They had serious injuries, they had a cover-up and they still couldn’t get a conviction the first time out. And they didn’t get a conviction in the Inglewood case.”

Levenson and other legal experts cited juror attitudes toward the police.

“We give a lot of discretion to police officers. We ask them to do a difficult job, and people, especially jurors, are reluctant to second-guess them,” Levenson said. “It’s only the worst of the worst cases that ever get criminally filed.”

Despite the difficulty in prosecuting the cases, activists said Cooley should have let a jury decide.

Danny Bakewell, president of the Brotherhood Crusade and chairman of the Community Commission on Police Abuse, called the decision “just outrageous.”

“What in the world would deter any police officer from beating a black man?” Bakewell asked. “None of these guys is ever held accountable for beatings.”

Watts activist “Sweet” Alice Harris appeared at the Hahn news conference and prayed that he and the LAPD would take action. “It’s not justice,” she said. “What are we going to tell our young people? I am angry.”

After Miller’s arrest, Bratton won praise among some civil rights activists -- and condemnation by some officers -- for urging a review of department policies and advocating that officers use small, rubber-coated flashlights instead of large, aluminum flashlights that could be used as weapons. Last month, the Police Commission issued a policy officially discouraging the use of flashlights as weapons by officers. Miller was sentenced Dec. 8 to three years in state prison after pleading guilty to unlawful driving or taking of a vehicle and evading an officer, charges that stemmed from the June 23 arrest. He has filed a $25-million claim against the city, alleging that he suffered brain damage and other injuries during his arrest.

In addition to Hahn, two other mayoral candidates -- Councilman and former L.A. Police Chief Bernard Parks and state Sen. Richard Alarcon -- weighed in on the D.A.’s decision.

Parks said residents should distinguish between acts that are criminal and those that require discipline.

“Although you may not like what you saw, it is not necessarily a criminal event just because you don’t like it,” he said.

Alarcon called on Hahn to make sure there was a thorough internal review of the incident so it was not repeated.

“I keep going back to the concerns expressed by the chief of police when he said this was all messed up,” Alarcon said. “I didn’t like what I saw on TV, and it needs to be fixed.”