From – Los Angeles Herald Examiner (March 20, 1987)

By: Rodolfo F. Acuña

Title – “Police brutality still alive and threatening”

American cities are unsafe places. Crime rates remain high, bus travel can be dangerous and gang warfare frequently counts passers-by among its victims. Fear has created such a public outcry for more and more police protection that questions about the consequences of supporting your local cop – right or wrong – go unheard.

Only occasionally do the media report on police abuse; even rarer is the politicians who criticizes law-enforcement agencies. It’s just not good politics to be perceived as soft on crime.

The reluctance to check police abuse not only means that innocent victims continue to suffer. The people as a whole also are victimized, because prosecuting those who abuse governmental power is that much more difficult. No matter how much we want to ignore it, police brutality is as potent an issue today as it was in 1970, when Los Angeles officers, in a case of mistaken identity, shot and killed Gillermo and Beltran Sanchez in their apartment and when newsman Ruben Salazar was accidentally, though recklessly, killed while covering a Chicano protest of the Vietnam War.

What is different today is that the media are far more inclined to ignore or play down such police abuses, and politicians are even more reluctant to defend the interests of their constituents when they are threatened by police brutality. What has survived from the old days is the Los Angeles district attorney’s refusal to prosecute officers who may have violated Penal Code Section 192, which deals with manslaughter.

The unwillingness to prosecute places an unfair burden on the survivors who are forced to live with the guilt and stigma associated with the “reasonable doubt” that their beloved committed a crime. In order to get a measure of justice, families must hire a lawyer and go to civil court to clear their reputations.

This is an expensive and time-consuming undertaking. It may take years just to be heard in court. A family may well succeed in clearing the name of their dead relative, but the system remains unchanged. Is the officer judged negligent in the use of deadly force deterred from doing it again? Not hardly. Officers know that the chance of being prosecuted is slight, and that if they are, the costs of defense zero, since taxpayers pick up the tab. Furthermore, while on trial they still collect their salaries and if punitive damages are awarded, taxpayers will again pay the bill.

Take the case of Jildardo Plasencia, 33. In 1980, the Plasencias hosted a family New Year’s Eve party in their Willowbrook home. The women and girls were in the house, the men and boys in a converted rumpus room in the garage. At about 9 p.m., Jildardo fired two guns and a shotgun into the air to celebrate the approaching New Year.

At roll call that evening, sheriff’s deputies had been told of this tradition. If they heard gunshots while on patrol, the deputies were instructed to go in, after calling for back up, with lights flashing. The sheriff’s department wanted to avoid an incident. But deputies David Anderson and Sandra Jones took it upon themselves to investigate the source of the gunfire, together in the dark.

According to the deputies, they encountered two men. The first immediately put up his hands; the other, Jildardo, allegedly stood in the garage doorway and pointed a gun at Jones, who shot and killed him. In the next three or four seconds, the deputies fired nine times, seven times through the partially opened garage door. Inside, three men, two teenagers and three boys crouched in terror. When the shooting stopped, Jildardo lay dead with an unloaded revolved in his hand; Juan Santoyo, 18, was wounded in the leg; and 3 year old Jildardo Jr. was struck once in the buttock, and another bullet ruptured his intestines.

A special investigation subsequently cleared the deputies of any wrongdoing. Although mistaken, according to investigators, they had acted reasonably. Witnesses were said to corroborate the officers’ version of the events, though many were characterized as confused. The coroner’s report, based on a blood-splatter test supposedly proved that Jildardo had pointed the gun at Jones. The district attorney refused to follow up.

Six years later, Stella Plasencia, her five children and Santoyo received a judgment of just under $1.4 million. During the civil trial, attorney Samuel Paz refuted the findings of the special investigation on four points. One, that the autopsy had corroborated the deputies’ account that Jildardo had pointed the gun at Jones; it did not. Two, that Jildardo was standing in the garage when he was shot and killed. Three, that the officers had acted “reasonably” in firing blindly at the garage door, Paz showed, the deputies had acted negligently and recklessly. And four, that witnesses supported the deputies’ version of events; in fact, their accounts were distorted when translated by a deputy with a third-grade knowledge of Spanish.

In light of the new evidence, will the district attorney bring charges? To date, no charges have been filled.

Other Latino families are faced with similar ordeals. The family of Arturo Oviedo, 25, for example, is demanding answers concerning the circumstances surrounding his death while in police custody. According to the arrest report, Oviedo was stopped at the Fullerton Mall on Jan. 8 at 1:40 a.m. because he looked like a Ninja warrior. A deputy noticed a syringe protruding from one of Oviedo’s gloves. Oviedo was then said to have run from the deputies, who pursued him. Five officers were eventually needed to restrain Oviedo. Two more syringes were allegedly found. The arrest report also showed that Oviedo was not under the influence of drugs.

Over the next couple of weeks, according to family members, Oviedo was kept under heavy sedation at the Orange County jail medical ward. While there, his public defender plea-bargained the charges against him. When Oviedo was found strangled to death in his cell on Jan. 31, he was serving a five month sentence for assaulting an officer. The family hired a pathologist who found that Oviedo had several broken ribs, a crushed vertebrae and a damaged spinal column. There was no evidence that Oviedo had fought back.

Through news reports, the family has learned that there is reason to believe that Oviedo might have been beaten to death by Thomas Pick, 23, his cellmate. Pick, who has a history of violence, was also the cellmate of another prisoner who died under mysterious circumstances. The Orange County District attorney has since filled criminal charges against Pick in both deaths.

For the Oviedos, many questions remain. Why was Arturo placed in a cell with Pick? Why was Arturo, who had no criminal record, kept sedated? While they wait for the answers, they must live with their grief and with the disturbing hindsight that if only they could have raised the $50,000 bond, Arturo would be alive today.

We all want safe cities. The price should not, however, be the abuse of governmental authority through the negligent use of deadly force.