Police Shootings

Only rarely does a judge in a criminal case overturn the verdict reached by jurors in her own courtroom. Still rarer is the judge who admits to committing an error so serious it taints a verdict. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Connor did both Friday night in an extraordinary ruling that overturned the convictions of three Rampart Division police officers, impressing legal scholars with both her tightly reasoned legal arguments and her unusual candor.

NEW YORK -- The mother of a 16-year-old boy whose death amid a hail of police gunfire has sparked clashes in a Brooklyn neighborhood called Thursday for an investigation into the shooting, which has raised  tensions in an area  community leaders say is “under siege” by overzealous cops. “Right now, today, I'm fighting for all black kids,” a tearful Carol Gray said as she insisted that her son, Kimani Gray, was not a gang member and would not have been carrying a loaded .38-caliber revolver with him last Saturday night.  “He's not the public's angel, but he's my angel,” she said, holding up a photograph of her hugging Kimani at his junior high school graduation two years ago. Police say two plainclothes officers on patrol in the East Flatbush area of Brooklyn late Saturday spotted a group of males standing outside.

The San Bernardino man who allegedly shot a sheriff's deputy last week, and then stunned investigators by pulling out a handgun and killing himself in a Sheriff's Department interview room after his arrest, was facing a third-strike felony charge and a possible life sentence if convicted, authorities said Monday. San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod also said investigators found that the suspect, Ricardo Alfonso Cerna, 47, had two bullets in his .

Seven Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies have been notified that the department intends to fire them for belonging to a secret law enforcement clique that allegedly celebrated shootings and branded its members with matching tattoos, officials said. The Times reported last year about the existence of the clique, dubbed the Jump Out Boys, and the discovery of a pamphlet that described the group's creed, which required aggressive policing and awarded tattoo modifications for police shootings.

First there was Kelly Thomas, the unarmed homeless man who was allegedly brutally beaten to death by police in Fullerton. Then there was Manuel Angel Diaz, shot in the back and killed by police last summer in Anaheim, prompting riots and clashes with officers lasting at least three days. And now comes Jose de la Trinidad, who according to a recently released coroner's report was shot by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies five times in the back and once each in the right hip and right forearm.

Federal officials have agreed to look into a recent officer-involved shooting in Anaheim after a meeting with the mayor Friday. The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI have agreed to conduct an independent review of the July 21 police shooting of Manuel Diaz, a 25-year-old documented gang member. The city will also provide federal authorities with information about other police shootings in Anaheim this year. So far, there have been six officer-involved shootings, five of them fatal.

Re "Police Shootings," letter, April 13: I have been a police officer for over 10 years. It has never been the policy of either agency I have worked for to "shoot to kill." Leonard Burney asks the question, why do police shoot to kill, not shoot to wound. The conditions [during a shooting] are always less than ideal. The easiest part of a person to hit is also the part that could cause fatal injury. The mind-set is to reduce the threat, not to kill. Unfortunately, death sometimes occurs but, generally speaking, most of those who die put themselves in that position, not the police.

Last year, as the number of police shootings soared, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck repeatedly gave his bosses and the public an explanation: Officers were discharging their weapons more because they were coming under attack more. He bolstered his assertion with LAPD statistics that showed an increase in the number of assaults on officers. But an independent LAPD watchdog now contends there was no link between the dramatic rise in officer-involved shootings and assaults on officers.

First there was Kelly Thomas, the unarmed homeless man who was allegedly brutally beaten to death by police in Fullerton. Then there was Manuel Angel Diaz, shot in the back and killed by police last summer in Anaheim, prompting riots and clashes with officers lasting at least three days. And now comes Jose de la Trinidad, who according to a recently released coroner's report was shot by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies five times in the back and once each in the right hip and right forearm.

Yesenia Rojas, vibrant in her purple shawl, sang with a voice so powerful it rose above the rest of the procession as they shuffled down the damp Anaheim sidewalk. " Era mexicana. Era mexicana, " they sang with a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe hoisted high, candlelight and street lamps illuminating their way. " Madrecita de los mexicanos. " The singsong serenade lauds the patroness, the mother of all Mexicans. On this drizzly evening, Rojas led the group down Anna Drive, where she and her family have made their home.

The man, Michigan police said, simply walked in and pulled out a gun. Never asked for anything. Never said a word. Just pulled out a gun, and pointed it at the officer behind the front desk of the Southfield police station, and pulled the trigger. Police in Southfield, a Detroit suburb, had few explanations for why Harold Joseph Collins, a 64-year-old veteran, drove his Dodge to the police station, walked through the door on Sunday afternoon with a .380 handgun and decided to open fire on Veterans Day. He had no apparent motive and no criminal history.

The L.A. County district attorney's office will not charge a man with involuntary manslaughter after he falsely claimed he was robbed at gunpoint, setting off a chain of events that ended with an officer fatally shooting a college student. Pasadena police shot and killed unarmed 19-year-old Kendrec McDade on a narrow street in the city's northeast section March 24 as he was being chased by an officer and his path blocked by a police car. Prosecutors found that Oscar Carrillo lied when he said he was robbed at gunpoint by McDade, but the lie just "was one in a series of acts ... that culminated in the fatal shooting," the prosecutor's report said.

Radcliffe Haughton, a 45-year-old Wisconsin man suspected of killing three people and wounding four others in a Sunday morning shooting at a spa, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot, police said. Police said they found Haughton's body inside the Azana Salon and Spa in the western Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield, where the shooting erupted shortly after 11 a.m. Police had said earlier they had found an improvised explosive device inside the salon after the shooting. It was unclear whether the device had been disarmed by the time they found Haughton's body.

The Anaheim police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man in July, spurring unrest in the city, is an amateur boxer on the side who uses the nickname "Buckshot" when he is in the ring, according to an amended wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the city Tuesday. Anaheim police have declined repeated requests by The Times to identify the officer involved in the July 21 shooting, citing safety concerns. The incident was one of two fatal police shootings in Anaheim during that weekend that led to weeks of street protests and violence in Orange County's largest city.

A fistfight between two Narbonne High School girls that drew a crowd of onlookers Thursday ended abruptly when a school police officer shot a burst of pepper spray into the air, forcing 47 students to seek help with respiratory and eye irritation, officials said. Students described a frenetic scene at the Harbor City school as the last of the fire engines and ambulances left the campus. Those stung by the pepper spray rinsed their eyes, some briefly accepted oxygen from paramedics and others said they were feeling nauseated as they made their way to a nurse's office that quickly became overcrowded.

Houston police shot and killed a mentally ill double amputee in a wheelchair after he threatened an officer with a pen, authorities said. Police arrived at a personal care home early Saturday morning after the man, Brian Claunch, started threatening his caretaker because he wouldn't give Claunch cigarettes and soda, John Garcia, the home's owner, told local media. The orderly called the police. When they arrived, Claunch - who had  one arm and one leg and was in his mid-40s - cornered one officer while waving around a weapon, police said.