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Make That Six, And Counting.
Marcus Smith, 31, allegedly brandished a semiautomatic handgun at officers. One officer was wounded. The department is already under investigation by two agencies over its use of deadly force.
By Corina Knoll and David Zahniser
May 18, 2009
Inglewood police shot and killed a man who allegedly brandished a weapon early Sunday while officers were attempting to break up a birthday party, authorities said.
The shooting was the latest deadly incident involving Inglewood's Police Department, which is under investigation by two outside agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, over its use of deadly force.
Police said officers responded to reports of a fight shortly after 12:45 a.m. in the 800 block of South Osage Avenue. Officers opened fire on Marcus Smith, 31, of Compton after he pointed a semiautomatic handgun at them, Lt. Mike McBride said.
"He had it in his hand. He drew it and pointed it in the direction of the officers," McBride said. "So I would say that's threatening the officers."
One officer was shot in the right leg in the incident. He was taken to a hospital, treated and released, McBride said. Police suspect the officer was shot by Smith, but they need to conduct more tests on his gun to be sure, he said.
A woman who identified herself as Smith's fiancee said she did not see him brandish a weapon. Kalonna LaCount said she and Smith were leaving the party together after police called on guests to disperse.
LaCount said she and Smith were walking down a stairway when Smith slipped. LaCount said she then saw Smith's body jerk as police fired their weapons.
"He had his hands in the air," she said. "The more he stumbled, the more they shot."
LaCount said she was not certain whether Smith was armed or even owned a gun. LaCount, wearing a green dress stained with Smith's blood, sat on the steps of the apartment building Sunday and wept as she recounted the moments before his death. LaCount said she and Smith had been together for 18 years and have three daughters, all under the age of 12.
Turning to her brother, Taqwa LaCount, she said: "He's dead. Can you believe it? What am I going to do?"
The Inglewood Police Department is under investigation by the Justice Department and the Los Angeles County Office of Independent Review over incidents in which officers have been accused of using excessive force.
The Justice Department's investigation is being handled by the federal agency's civil rights division in Washington. The county's independent review office, which monitors the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, has promised to look at the Inglewood department's training, supervision, policies and protocol.
The Police Department was the subject of community protests last year from residents angry over four incidents between May and September in which officers shot and killed unarmed suspects. A Times investigation last year also found that five of 11 people shot and killed by Inglewood police since 2003 were unarmed.
On Sunday, police and witnesses described the scene at the two-story apartment building as chaotic, with dozens of people attending the party as officers arrived.
Morris Griffin, 50, who lives in a ground-floor apartment directly below the scene of the shooting, said he heard an argument, went upstairs and saw two men wrestling. He said he separated them, but they continued arguing, so he ran back to his apartment and called police.
Griffin said he heard officers shout "Police! Gun!" before at least seven to eight shots were fired. Smith was struck on the outdoor stairs leading to the second floor, Griffin said. "The officers appeared to be intimidated by the size of the individuals," he said.
Inglewood resident Charisma Bailey, 28, who lives in the apartment where the Mardi Gras-themed party was held, said party-goers were wearing masks and beads.
Bailey said she was standing next to the window of her apartment, looking down the stairs when officers approached the building holding flashlights and guns.
"The next thing you know, they're shooting, and he's falling down the steps," she said of Smith.
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Inglewood police have repeatedly resorted to deadly force
Inglewood police officers have shot and killed five unarmed suspects since 2003
Inglewood police officers have shot and killed five six unarmed suspects since 2003.
One suspect, Eddie Felix Franco, (far right, shot Aug. 31, 2008) was carrying a realistic-looking toy gun. The others (from left): Jule Dexter III, age 27, June 6, 2005; Richard Ray Tyson, age 20, May 9, 2007; Michael Byoune, age 19, May 11, 2008, and Ruben Ortega, age 23, July 1, 2008.
One summer evening in 2005, an Inglewood police officer stood with his gun aimed at a schizophrenic man who had been stopped for drinking beer in public.
The officer ordered Jule Dexter to put his hands on the hood of the police car, but Dexter's baggy pants started slipping.
"Please let me pull my pants up," Dexter pleaded, according to a witness' sworn testimony.
"Don't move!" the officer yelled.
But Dexter, 27, reached to pull up his pants, witnesses said. The officer fired four shots into Dexter's back and head, killing him.
Over the last six years, Inglewood police officers have repeatedly resorted to physical or deadly force against suspects who were unarmed or accused of minor offenses, a Times investigation found.
In the span of four months this year, Inglewood officers shot and killed four people, three of them unarmed. The Times' review of court documents, law enforcement records and interviews shows that the problem is not new.
* Five of the 11 people shot and killed by Inglewood police since 2003 were unarmed. They include a man who fled when officers tried to stop him for riding his bicycle on a sidewalk. An officer said he fired when the man reached for a bulge near his waist, which turned out to be a rolled-up T-shirt.
* Several officers -- including a training sergeant -- have complained about the department's policy on when to shoot and about a lack of training.
* To investigate shootings by police, the department has assigned the vice president of the Inglewood police officers' union, which advocates for officers accused of wrongdoing, and a detective accused by a prosecutor of lying about his own off-duty shooting.
* Two Inglewood officers were involved in using electric Taser guns on unarmed suspects four times in five weeks -- including on one man's genitals -- prompting defense attorneys to call them the "Taser Twins."
Earlier this year, the city hired consultants to review the department's training, policies and procedures and initiated a training program to improve officers' tactics.
Inglewood Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said it was unfair to portray her officers as quick to pull the trigger or excessive in using force.
In some cases, she said, police opened fire only after suspects stabbed officers, shot at them or pointed guns in their direction. The 195-member department responds to more than 130,000 calls each year, she said, usually without problems or headlines.
"We interact with people who are exceedingly violent and resistive to the lesser levels of force, and we don't always shoot them," said Seabrooks, who became chief last year.
Inglewood officers have shot unarmed people they mistakenly believed posed a threat on six occasions, or a quarter of all shootings by police since 2003. Two of those people were carrying toy weapons. Five died and one was wounded.
On four other occasions, officers opened fire at moving cars, a practice strongly discouraged by many police agencies, including Inglewood.
"That's a lot of shootings in a smaller department," said Geoffrey Alpert, a professor at the University of South Carolina who has helped police agencies draft policies on the use of deadly force. "It raises a red flag."
Comparing officer shootings at different agencies is difficult because of varying crime rates, demographics and force size. Few agencies keep readily available data on the circumstances surrounding such shootings. Nevertheless, statistics from nearby agencies suggest that Inglewood's numbers are high.
Officers in the neighboring city of Hawthorne, for example, have shot and killed one unarmed suspect since 2003. Hawthorne, which has a crime rate similar to Inglewood's, has half as many police officers and four-fifths the population of Inglewood.
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