FBI Opens Probe of 3 Slayings by Sheriff’s Deputies

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened preliminary investigations of possible civil rights violations in the deaths of three people shot and killed by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies over the last three weeks, an FBI spokesman said Wednesday.

Three separate inquiries will focus on the shootings of 15-year-old auto theft suspect David Angel Ortiz on Aug. 28, former mental patient Keith Hamilton, 33, on Aug. 13, and Steve Clemons, 27, last Monday, said FBI spokesman John Hoos.

The incidents have called into question the policies of the Sheriff’s Department regarding the use of deadly force and have prompted calls for a broad inquiry similar to the Christopher Commission’s examination of the Los Angeles Police Department. Sheriff Sherman Block has resisted such an investigation of his department, but has said he will appear at a public hearing on the controversy later this month before the County Board of Supervisors.

The shootings already are being investigated by the Sheriff’s Department, as is routine in such cases.

“Even though we currently have our own investigation, we will, as always, cooperate fully with any investigation conducted by the FBI,” said department spokesman Sgt. Larry Lincoln.

Hoos said the results of the FBI inquiries will be forwarded to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in Washington for a decision on whether to pursue the cases.

He refused to say what prompted the FBI office in Los Angeles to begin the investigations.

The Justice Department reviews about 2,500 allegations of criminal violations of civil rights laws by law enforcement officers nationwide each year, but on average only 29 a year are prosecuted.

Earlier in the day, Ortiz’s parents had called for a federal investigation, saying their son “did not deserve to die” and might have survived his wounds with proper treatment at the scene. The 15-year-old was unarmed when he was slain by deputies after an apparent auto theft in Artesia last week.

In the incident on Monday, Clemons was shot and killed while on a holiday outing with his family at Willowbrook Park. A deputy said he believed that Clemons pointed a gun at him, but some witnesses among an angry crowd said Clemons was unarmed and fleeing from deputies with a beer bottle in his hand when he was shot.

The Aug. 13 incident occurred in Ladera Heights, where deputies were called by Hamilton’s mother, who reported that she had been having trouble with her son. Deputies who responded to the call said they shot him because they believed he was reaching for a knife.

All three incidents occurred against the backdrop of community outrage that followed an Aug. 3 incident in the Ramona Gardens housing project, where a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed 19-year-old Arturo Jimenez, who allegedly hit a deputy on the head with a flashlight. Witnesses said the shooting was unprovoked.

That shooting apparently is not being investigated by the FBI.

Earlier Wednesday, David Ortiz Sr., 33, and his wife, Debbie, 32, called for a federal investigation and asked that the Los Angeles County Grand Jury and the Board of Supervisors conduct independent investigations of the incident.

“My son was not involved in violence and was not a violent person,” a tearful Debbie Ortiz told a news conference at the Greater Los Angeles Press Club in Hollywood. “He did not deserve to die in that way.”

Sheriff’s Department officials have said that the shooting took place before dawn on Aug. 28 after a high-speed chase. They said Deputies Jose A. Belmares and Robert Orona pursued a stolen car containing David Ortiz Jr. and another 15-year-old.

The deputies told officials they first drew their guns and began firing because the youths stopped, then backed up and rammed the officers’ car. They said Ortiz, who had been driving the stolen car, eventually tried to run away, and Belmares, 29, shot at Ortiz because he believed the boy was reaching for a weapon in his waistband.

The fatally wounded youth fell to the ground. No weapon was found. The other boy was arrested unharmed at the scene.

The dead boy’s father, a mail carrier who works in Los Angeles, said Wednesday that “you’d have to be empty upstairs” to believe the deputies’ version of the shooting.

“Why would he reach for something in his waistband when he was unarmed?” David Ortiz Sr. asked. “I don’t see how an unarmed boy, running away, is a threat to anyone.”

Miguel F. Garcia, a lawyer representing the parents, said that an autopsy performed Aug. 30 by the county coroner’s office showed that the Ortiz boy had suffered bullet wounds in the lower back, the back of the neck and the ankle. The coroner’s office confirmed only that the fatal wound was in the back of the boy’s neck.

Garcia also said Orona told him that the deputies rammed the boys’ car, rather than the other way around.

At the news conference, Garcia made public copies of letters written by the parents to Lourdes Baird, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles; Kenneth Hahn, president of the Board of Supervisors, and George Ackerman, foreman of the Grand Jury.

“It is our request, based on the initial investigation and autopsy findings, that your office is mandated to file civil rights violation charges against deputies Jose A. Belmares and Robert Orona,” the letter to Baird states.

“After our son had been shot, wounded, and was lying on the ground bleeding, the . . . deputies proceeded to handcuff our son,” the letter continues. “Dr. (Irving) Root, (an) independent pathologist, explained that the cause of death, asphyxiation, caused by drowning in his own blood, would have been avoided if deputies, instead of handcuffing our dying son, would have rendered immediate assistance.”

Baird, Hahn and Ackerman declined comment, saying they had yet to receive copies of the letters.

After learning of the FBI investigation Wednesday, Clemons’ widow, Alvina, 25, said, “Something really needs to be done.”

She said her husband was playing dominoes with friends in Willowbrook Park when deputies pulled up. Her husband ran, she said, and a deputy said: “I’ll get that (epithet).” She said she ran behind the deputy and saw her husband with his back to the officers and his hands in the air.

“Then I heard a gunshot.”

She said that she did not know why her husband ran from the deputies. After the shooting, authorities announced they had retrieved a gun from a lake at the park. Sheriff’s officials said Wednesday they had not determined whether the gun belonged to Clemons.

“My husband did not own a gun, period,” Alvina Clemons said.

“I hope the (deputy) who did this gets fired and goes to jail. It was murder. My husband was not threatening them in any way with his back turned.”

Times staff writer Eric Malnic contributed to this report.