Shootout Raises Too Many Questions

When SWAT officers entered the tiny office after a 2 1/2 -hour standoff in Watts 10 days ago, the 19-month-old girl they were trying to save was in her father's arms.

Moments later, the father and the girl were dead, both killed by police bullets.

I learned this from LAPD Chief William J. Bratton on Tuesday evening after visiting the site of the controversial shooting at 104th Street and Avalon Boulevard and calling the chief with questions.

I'd had some questions before visiting the scene. Afterward, I had more.

The Raul's Auto Sales building is roughly the size of a two-car garage, with an interior office the size of a toolshed. Standing inside, I was surrounded by dozens of bullet holes. It wasn't hard to imagine the intensity of the firefight that claimed the lives of the toddler and her father and left a police officer wounded.

On one wall alone, I counted 26 bullet holes. Tiny shafts of sunlight sliced through more than a dozen bullet holes in the exterior walls.

Half a block away, I had met the toddler's mother, Lorena Lopez, who came out on her front step holding a blue pajama top to her face. She told me her daughter, Suzie Marie, was wearing it the morning she was killed. Lopez said she could still smell her daughter.

I'd been reserving judgment on the shooting, which has sparked community cries for justice, because what happened on that day wasn't entirely clear. But 10 days later, it wasn't much clearer. Although police had said a lot about the incident, they hadn't said much about the most critical moments of the shootout.

It seemed obvious from the beginning that the toddler's father, Jose Raul Pena, was chiefly and unconscionably responsible for the death of his daughter. Bratton was on the money when he attacked those who defended Pena as a good man unfairly targeted by overzealous police.

"This is not a good father," Bratton snapped. "He is no hero."

But that doesn't answer everything.

Police say the 35-year-old undocumented immigrant used his toddler as a human shield while shooting at officers with a stolen gun, and that he had threatened several family members, two of whom called police for help.

In the Los Angeles Police Department's version of events, Pena fired at officers when they arrived on the scene. Pena's teenage stepdaughter, who was there for a time, later told police that Pena was flying high on cocaine and alcohol. A hostage negotiator tried to talk him into surrendering, but he allegedly said he wasn't going to jail.