Deputy Cleared in Fatal Shooting

As San Bernardino County sheriff’s detectives continued their investigation into a controversial, videotaped shooting by a sheriff’s deputy last week in Chino, the district attorney’s office announced that no criminal charges would be filed in a separate videotaped shooting by a deputy in August.

In that incident, a store security camera showed an undercover deputy firing into an SUV at a Rialto shopping center, killing the driver, Antuan Conners, 20.

Conners was a suspect in two jewelry store robberies, and deputies, in unmarked cars, were trying to arrest him. They boxed in his car in the parking lot and got out of their cars. When Conners tried to accelerate around them, he was shot to death by Deputy Hector Gomez.

Ben Gonzales, San Bernardino County supervising deputy district attorney, concluded in his 11-page review that the shooting was legally justified. Gomez “was in legitimate fear that one or more of the deputies present would be seriously injured or killed as a result of Conners’ refusal to comply with the deputies’ commands to stop his car,” the report said.

But attorneys for the Conners family said it was uncertain whether Antuan Conners knew he was surrounded by law enforcement officers. He may have believed he was being attacked by armed men and, understandably, tried to flee, they said.

“It seems as if the policeman’s account is the only one given any weight; this report is totally one-sided,” said Olivier Taillieu, the Connerses’ attorney. “They did a botched-up job on the stop that was full of bad tactics, including putting themselves in danger and creating the urgency. Then they shoot Antuan. No lights. No sirens. This was an ambush.”

The district attorney’s office released the findings on the Conners investigation Friday.

Meanwhile, on Saturday sheriff’s investigators were unsuccessful in their attempt to interview a U.S. Air Force security officer who was shot Jan. 29 by a deputy following a brief high-speed chase in Chino. The airman, Elio Carrion, was the passenger in the car, and was shot by Deputy Ivory John Webb Jr.

The Carrion family attorney, Luis Carrillo, said Carrion was still recovering from his injuries and was unavailable. Carrillo said he was outraged that the investigators would not tell him whether or not Webb was suspected of a crime.

In a videotape of the shooting, made by a bystander, the deputy appears to tell Carrion, who was sprawled on the ground, to “get up, get up.” When the airman tried to stand, the deputy shot him three times.

Webb’s father, former Compton Police Chief Ivory Webb, told The Times last week that his son felt threatened when Carrion started to rise and that his son had only a split-second to react.

The Chino resident who taped the shooting, Jose Luis Valdes, was arrested by Pomona police Friday on an outstanding warrant from Dade County, Fla., on charges of aggravated assault. Valdes, who fled Cuba in the early 1990s, was taken into custody while visiting a federal immigration office to renew his immigrant registration card. Immigration officials discovered the warrant during a routine background check and called police, authorities said.

His federal extradition hearing is scheduled for today.