“And guess what I am going to use as evidence?” he asked recently.

He said that, like Yagman, he will attempt to introduce the commission’s report as evidence of the department’s poor management and condoning of excessive force.

“It is a great piece of evidence – really trustworthy, credible evidence of what we have been saying for years,” Cook said of the report. “It is ironic that we are validated by the city. It is really ironic.

“I think the city is getting a dose of justice.”

Vincent, the deputy city attorney, has yet to mount the city’s defense in the current case. Though he declined to reveal specifics about his strategy, he said his task is to clearly separate the report from the facts of the shooting that is the basis for the lawsuit.

“We are going to stick to the facts of the case,” Vincent said. “Our opinion is like the mayor’s. It is still the finest police department in the nation.”

He said that almost all documents used as evidence in lawsuits against the police come from police-shooting reports, policy statements and disciplinary records. So facing the commission report is not a totally unfamiliar situation. Still, Vincent said, its impact may be the most difficult to deal with.

“I think it is significant,” he said. “It has certainly gotten recognition and prestige.

“But I think it is something we will effectively deal with. We think some of it is flawed. It gives a skewed view.”

That view comes from the report’s focus on problems within the department without a full reporting on positive aspects of the force, Vincent said. The report’s conclusions are too broadly drawn, he added, and jurors will be unable to ascribe them to the officers involved in the McDonald’s shooting because neither they nor their unit is mentioned in the report.

“This type of information should never be used,” Vincent said. “It has come into this case to prejudice officers that are not even named in it.”

Still, Vincent is resigned to having that task of deflecting the effect of the report in trials to come.

“I am not sure of all the ways it can be used against us,” he said. “So we are thinking about it.

“We are just going to take it one case at a time.”

L.A. DETECTIVE TELLS DETAILS OF FATAL SHOOTING

Civil rights: The officer is testifying as a defendant in a suit alleging the Special Investigations Section killed three unarmed robbers.

March 5, 1992

In testimony lasting nearly three hours in federal court Wednesday, a Los Angeles police officer described in grim detail the shooting in which he and fellow officers fired 35 times at four robbers outside a Sunland McDonald’s, killing three and wounding the fourth.

Detective John Helms said he fired six times with a shotgun and three times with a pistol after seeing one of the bandits flee the getaway car with a gun and a second man brandishing a gun inside the car.

Afterward, police discovered that the weapons used by the robbers during the Feb. 12, 1990, incident were pellet guns that were replicas of real firearms.

During the shooting, Helms said: “I was looking for any indication that these men were trying to submit to arrest. I saw nothing” that indicated surrender.

Helms’ testimony came in the months-long trial of a civil rights lawsuit filed by the surviving robber and the families of the men killed.

Their suit contends that the nine officers who opened fire did so without warning or provocation and that the use of excessive force violated their rights. The suit says the officers, all members of the department’s Special Investigations Section, are part of a “death squad” that specifically targets criminal suspects for execution.

The surviving robber, Alfredo Olivas, testified earlier that the bandits had stowed their pellet guns in the trunk of the car after the robbery and therefore were unarmed when fired upon. Several officers later testified briefly that they saw guns being brandished, prompting the shooting.

Now, in the defense phase of the trial, the officers are testifying at length about the incident and why they opened fire.

Seemingly choked with emotion during some of his testimony about the shooting, Helms told jurors that, because of tactical and safety concerns, the officers could not move in to arrest the bandits until the thieves left the McDonald’s after robbing the lone employee inside.

When the four men were in their car, which was parked on the street, four SIS cars moved in to block their escape. Two of the police cars actually hit the getaway car, “jamming” it behind a parked truck.

As officers jumped out of their cars, Helms said, he heard one officer shout “Gun!” – a warning that he saw a gun in the getaway car. Helms then heard shots being fired and shouts of “Police! You’re under arrest!”

“Things were going on simultaneously,” Helms said. “I saw a man get out…and I saw a gun in his right hand. I saw him start to run.”

Helms said that, because the robbers had used guns during previous crimes, he believed the men still inside the car were also armed and that the officers surrounding the car were in danger.

“I started directing fire at the back,” Helms said. “The next thing I saw was one of the handguns being brandished through one of the holes in the rear window.”

Helms fired again, emptying his shotgun of shells. In the meantime, other officers shot the man who had run from the car when he allegedly turned and pointed a pellet gun at them.

“I knew I was out of ammo on my shotgun,” Helms said. “I put it in my car and took out my.45.”

Helms then described how he and his partner approached the car to make sure the three robbers inside were no longer a threat. He said that when he looked into the car one of the men in the backseat was reaching for a gun on the floor. Helms said he yelled for the man to stop and fired twice when he did not comply. Helms said the other man in the backseat then reached for the weapon, and Helms fired at him as well.

Helms said he did not know how long the shooting lasted. “When I believe my life is in danger, I am not a good estimator of time,” he said.

During cross-examination of Helms, the plaintiffs’ attorney, Stephen Yagman, pointed out that the weapon the officer claimed to have seen in the car was an unloaded pellet gun. Yagman has said that the jury will have to decide whether it is plausible that the robbers would have pointed or attempted to reach for pellet guns when confronted by nine officers with shotguns and.45s.

GATES WANTS TO BE ‘JUDGE, JURY, EXECUTIONER,’ LAWYER SAYS

Courts: Attorneys make their closing arguments in the trial stemming from a February 1990 shooting in Sunland in which officers killed three robbers.

March 25, 1992

The Los Angeles Police Department is a “Frankenstein monster” created by Chief Daryl F. Gates, who has allowed a squad of officers to operate as “assassins,” a federal jury was told Tuesday in a trial over a police shooting that left three robbers dead.

But the allegations made by an attorney representing the robbers and their families was rebutted by the city’s attorney, who defended Gates and said members of the police squad – the Special Investigations Section – use tactics designed to avoid shootings.

The statements came during closing arguments in a three-month trial stemming from the Feb. 12, 1990, shooting outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland.

“The police have gone too far in Los Angeles by using excessive force,” plaintiffs’ attorney Stephen Yagman said.

“The LAPD and Daryl Gates have ruled this community for 14years by fear,” Yagman said. “He does and has done as he pleases. The LAPD is his Frankenstein monster. It is something that has gone beyond all bounds… He wants to be judge, jury and executioner.”

Gates and nine SIS officers are defendants in the lawsuit filed by the families of three bandits who were killed by police and a fourth who was shot but survived. The lawsuit contends that the officers used excessive force and fired on the robbers without cause. The 10-member jury is expected to begin deliberations today.