Prometheus 6

First of two articles on LAPD shootings
Investigating Their Own
The LAPD has often led its civilian overseers astray about key facts on officers' use of deadly force
By Matt Lait and Scott Glover
Times Staff Writers

October 17, 2004

Officer Jeff Nolte was leading a drug raid on a motel in Gardena when a suspected cocaine dealer pointed a shotgun at him. Nolte fired two shots "in immediate defense of his life," hitting the suspect, Leonard Robinson, in the hands and disarming him.

At least that was the story told by the Los Angeles Police Department. Seeing no reason to doubt it, the Police Commission ruled the shooting "in policy." Nolte was officially in the clear.

Four years later, Robinson's civil rights lawsuit went to trial, and a very different picture emerged.

Evidence not seen by the commission showed that Robinson had his hands in the air when Nolte opened fire. Robinson wasn't aiming a weapon at the officer, the jury found. He was trying to surrender. Robinson collected $2 million in damages this year.

"I do not believe that any officer could reasonably have believed that this shooting was justified," said U.S. District Court Judge Nora Manella, who presided at the trial.

It was not the first time the Police Commission had been led astray by the department it supervises. Time and again, the LAPD has given its civilian overseers an incomplete, often distorted picture of police shootings, a Times investigation found.