Police Shootings Los Angeles

Terry James Parker, the ex-convict who shot a CHP officer before being killed by police, had used cocaine before the early morning confrontation, according to a toxicology report. "He was apparently under the influence of cocaine at the time," said Scott Carrier, spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner. "Any measurable amount of cocaine is significant. This is significant."

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses 13 members of a controversial Los Angeles Police Department unit of killing a man they had tailed and allowed to rob a liquor store in Newbury Park in June 1995. The suit asks for damages and requests a federal injunction prohibiting the LAPD's Special Investigations Section (SIS) from continuing its practice of following suspects, allowing them to commit crimes and "then to murder them."

The Los Angeles Police Commission has ruled that last July's fatal shooting of a 14-year-old youth did not violate department policy, according to a report given behind closed doors to the City Council on Friday. Sources said the department has cleared Officer Michal A. Falvo of any wrongdoing in the Lincoln Heights killing, which touched off two days of rock- and bottle-throwing in the neighborhood.

Three men shot to death in March by Los Angeles police in the west San Fernando Valley had taken drugs and one had ingested both alcohol and cocaine in the hours before their deadly encounters, according to autopsy results released Friday. The men, killed in separate incidents on March 9 and 11, were shot in their cars after they tried to escape from police in their cars.

A Los Angeles federal judge on Monday stayed a federal civil rights lawsuit against 13 members of a controversial Los Angeles Police Department unit while separate Ventura County charges are pending against the man suing the LAPD. In April, Venice civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman sued 13 members of the LAPD's Special Investigations Section, alleging that they tried to kill Robert Cunningham in June 1995 after they tailed him and watched as he robbed a liquor store in Newbury Park.

About 50 protesters, including families of people killed by police officers, demonstrated Tuesday in front of the Criminal Courts Building, charging that the Los Angeles district attorney's office has failed to prosecute those officers.

Alan Heinze, police say, refused to turn off his radio. He wouldn't even turn off his ignition. And when West Valley Police Officer Jorge Morales put his arm inside the pickup truck early Monday morning to turn off the engine and arrest Heinze, he took off, dragging Morales and leading to the year's first officer-involved shooting in the West Valley.

Two Los Angeles police officers fatally shot a man who allegedly refused to surrender a handgun and then pointed it at one of the officers, police said. Donaldo Arauz, 35, was taken to a hospital where he died during surgery. Officers Scott Defoe, 30, and Richard Evans, 26, responded to a call about a "man with a gun" just after 8 a.m. in the 800 block of South Kenmore Avenue, a police spokesman said. Arauz was in an apartment with his sister and her baby.

Residents of the Ramona Gardens housing project said Friday that deteriorating police-community relations--and a lack of official response to past complaints--contributed to a crowd throwing rocks and bottles at officers after police fatally shot a suspected gang member. A Los Angeles police officer is recovering after being shot during the gun battle Thursday evening near the densely populated Eastside housing project.

Telling the latest crop of Los Angeles Police Academy graduates that it made him sick to do so, Mayor Richard Riordan on Friday grudgingly signed a $3.5-million award to a convicted felon who was paralyzed by a police officer's bullet after waving a gun at the officers through an automobile sun roof. "It's a travesty of justice, an embarrassment and an affront to every Angeleno," Riordan said of the case, in which a jury in December voted to give Clarence Watson $4.9 million.