Police Killing of Pacoima Man Protested

More than 100 people demonstrated outside the Los Angeles Police Department station in Pacoima on Wednesday to protest the fatal shooting Monday of a Pacoima gang member by a police officer he attacked with a broomstick. Violence later broke out nearby.

No injuries or arrests were reported, and police were not certain that the events were related.

Several hours after the demonstration to protest the killing of Efrain Lopez, 18, Los Angeles firefighters were pelted with rocks and bottles when they tried to put out a fire in a garbage container at Maclay Junior High School in Pacoima, said Bob Collis, a Fire Department spokesman.

The school, in the 12000 block of Pierce Street, is about two miles from the police station, across Whiteman Air Park.

Police Sgt. Sol Polen said it was possible that the fire and the assaults on firefighters, beginning before 8 p.m., were related to the earlier protest at the police station. However, he said, police could not be sure because none of the rock-throwers had been apprehended.

A police car was assigned to escort firefighters to the school, where they extinguished the blaze.

Demonstrators began gathering about 4:30 p.m. in front of the Foothill Division station at 12760 Osborne St., expressing outrage.

“We want justice for whoever did this to him,” said Dora De La Mora, 21, a cousin of Lopez.

“They did not have to shoot him nine times. A broomstick is not going to kill two police officers who have been trained to fight. . . . We feel like they treated him like an animal.”

Another cousin, Maria Avalos, said: “The LAPD Foothill Division is very racist. If he had been white and was in West Hills, this would never have happened.”

Prior to the shooting, the 18-year-old Lopez assaulted his mother and a neighbor. His mother, who has since protested the killing, had summoned officers to control Lopez, who she said at the time was “acting crazy,” drinking holy water and claiming to be Christ and Satan.

Officers approached Lopez in front of a house on Borden Avenue and repeatedly ordered him to drop the broom. Police said Officer Neil Goldberg shot Lopez nine times as he charged Goldberg, swinging the broom by the bristle end and yelling: “Shoot me! Kill me!”

Most of the protesters said police used excessive force in killing Lopez.

“Instead of fatally wounding him, they could have physically restrained him,” said Laura Godoy, secretary of the CSUN chapter of MEChA, a Chicano student group. “If the officer was going to shoot at him, at least he could have shot him in the leg. . . . Why did he shoot to kill?”

Members of MEChA were joined by others from the National Chicano Human Rights Committee and representatives from the Nation of Islam and Grupo Cuauhtemoc, an Indian group.

But others, who turned out to watch the protest, said they believed that police used reasonable force.

“The officers had to protect themselves. . . . They were just doing their job,” said Frank Olvera, a Pacoima resident. “It was self-defense.”

The protest began with about eight members of Grupo Cuauhtemoc, dressed in traditional Aztec Indian costumes, performing a unity dance to the beat of drums and rattles amid the thick scent of burning incense. Demonstrators marched around the dancers, some carrying a huge Mexican flag. Others chanted phrases, including “Justice now” and “Chicano power.”

The group, led by the dancers, marched about half a block to San Fernando Road and then returned to the station. More than half a dozen people spoke to the crowd, and the chanting and dancing continued. More than a dozen police officers stood watch over the crowd, but made no attempt to interfere.

Among the officers was Lt. Stella Mattson, commanding officer of the Foothill station’s detective division.

“We’re looking at this as a healing sign that shows the community is concerned as to what’s going on in their community,” Mattson said.

The Foothill Division has been under intense public scrutiny and undergone many personnel and organizational changes since Rodney G. King was beaten by officers from that station last year.

Police have said Goldberg, a four-year veteran, has been placed on non-field duty pending a departmental investigation of the incident, which may take as long as two months.