Video Adds to Picture of LAPD Shootout

The Los Angeles Police Department on Thursday released still images lifted from security videotapes showing that Jose Raul Pena was gripping his 19-month-old daughter with one arm and shooting with the other during a 2 1/2 -hour police standoff Sunday.

The department also revealed further details of the bloody shootout in Watts, which resulted in the deaths of Pena and his young daughter, Suzie Marie, and the wounding of LAPD Officer Daniel Sanchez. The 35-year-old car dealer used a stolen gun during the incident, and had a plastic bag of cocaine with him, police said.

But breaking from past practice, police declined to release the names of the officers who fired their weapons. Suzie was killed by a bullet to the head from a police rifle, authorities said this week, but the LAPD has not determined who the shooter was.

In other high-profile shootings, the LAPD has promptly provided the public with the identities of officers involved -- in some cases as soon as the day of the incident.

Officials have said 11 officers fired their weapons during the showdown. Some relatives of Pena have challenged police accounts that the auto-shop owner used his child as a shield, even questioning whether he was armed at all.

In response, the LAPD on Thursday sought to demonstrate that Pena had provoked the confrontation.

The video images clearly show a man said by police to be Pena emerging from the door to a small interior office into a cluttered, open area of the dealership. One of his arms is circled around the toddler; the other is held straight out, gripping a 9-millimeter Beretta pistol as he fires out an exterior door.

“We are being accused of ... executing him for no reason at all. It is not true,” Assistant Chief George Gascon said at a news conference.

The pictures were “offered to reassure the public that the department is being as transparent as possible,” he said. “We realize the family is grieving and experiencing incredible loss, but ... rumors serve only to promote distrust.”

Police Chief William J. Bratton was not at the news conference. He was out of town because his mother is ill.

Other videotape pictures show blurred images that appear to be Pena in a baseball cap and red shirt moving in and out of the door of the office, the child in his arms.

The images are shot from above, and the details are difficult to make out. But in at least two images, he appears to be shooting.

Gascon said the gun had been identified as one stolen last year in a burglary in Salem, Ore.

He sought to explain to reporters details of the video photos that were only murkily visible, such as puffs of white smoke that indicated Pena shooting.

Police also offered reporters images of a partially consumed bottle of tequila and a plastic bag on a bookshelf of the dealership. The bag tested positive for cocaine, Gascon said.

Results of toxicology tests on Pena’s remains have not been released. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office, which so far has released only a few details of autopsies in the case, did not respond to a Times request for more information Thursday.

“As you take a closer look, you will be able to see that he is clearly using the baby as a shield,” Gascon told reporters.

Asked to respond, Luis Carrillo, an attorney for Suzie Pena’s family, said he had not seen the new material and declined to comment.

Criticism of police actions continued Thursday.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) released a written statement expressing sympathy for the family and adding: “I just wonder if 11 well-trained police officers, including some from the sharp-shooting elite SWAT team could not have disabled this supposedly crazy and confused man.”

Thursday evening, a small group of protesters near the scene of the shooting surrounded and harassed an officer making a routine traffic stop in the neighborhood, LAPD spokesman Jason Lee said.

The officer was able to complete the stop and go on his way, Lee said. But soon afterward, police called a tactical alert for the second night in a row.

It required additional patrol units to monitor a larger crowd of 50 to 60 protesters who had gathered near the car lot at Avalon Boulevard and 104th Street, Lee said.

Gascon said police were withholding the names of the officers involved because they were traumatized. In the past, media efforts to contact officers named in similar cases “have created a very uncomfortable situation for us,” he said.

Gascon’s account and those given by police earlier in the week now constitute the following narrative:

Near the close of the incident, a SWAT officer on the turret of an armored vehicle saw the suspect in the back door of the dealership and “believed he had a clear shot at him,” Bratton has said.

Pena was only partially visible. According to investigators, it remains unclear whether he was still holding the child. A rescue team was standing by, and the SWAT officer fired.

Believing Pena was wounded, team members ran inside to get Suzie, but once in, they realized that Pena had retreated to the interior office and was shooting at them through drywall.

Officer Sanchez was in front of the group. He reached the threshold of the office, threw a smoke grenade, then was struck by a bullet and fell.

The other officers crowded in, and multiple shots were fired by both sides.

When the shots ceased, Pena lay dead by the small office desk with blood splattered behind him, and the child lay near the door with a large head wound.