-> SNETNEWS Mailing List Bereft Family Disputes Police Shooting Report By ANNE-MARIE O'CONNOR LA Times Staff Writer It was an hour before midnight when an El Monte police SWAT team, serving a search warrant as part of a broad-ranging narcotics investigation, undertook what it called the "high-risk entry" of a Compton home--shooting the locks off the front and back doors. Their warrant, which named no one in the Paz home, says police expected to find marijuana and cash belonging to a suspected member of a drug ring who had allegedly used the house as a mail drop. They found no drugs, but in the course of the search they shot a retired grandfather twice in the back--killing him. The widow was hustled out of the house in nothing but panties, a towel and plastic handcuffs. She and six others were later taken away and intensively interrogated, but no one was charged. Ten thousand dollars in cash was seized as evidence, along with a .22- caliber rifle and three pistols, according to investigators for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The family said that the money was patriarch Mario Paz's life savings and that he kept firearms for protection in the high-crime neighborhood. El Monte police, who obtained the search warrant and conducted the Aug. 9 raid, said they were using standard procedure for dangerous places where they fear officers will be fired on. A sheriff's investigator said the El Monte officer shot Paz because he thought he was reaching for a weapon--something Paz's widow, Maria Luisa, adamantly denies. Now the six children of Mario Paz--a grandfather of 14 who would have turned 65 this week--are demanding to know why the police burst into the home while the family was sleeping. And what were El Monte police doing in Compton? The arrest warrant said the Paz home was considered high-risk because high-powered rifles were found in a search of another home linked to the suspect. And El Monte police say their aggressive anti-drug strategy commonly prompts them to serve search warrants as far afield as Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino. "We go all over. Anything related to our town we go out and get," said El Monte Police Sgt. Steve Krigbaum, the head of the force's Narcotics Policing Division. "If we can show it directly impacts narco activity here, we'll go after it," he said. Brian Dunn, the lawyer representing the Pazes, said the officers should have known the family did not pose a threat. "They fired shotguns through doors and windows as people were sleeping," Dunn said. "The tactics in this case were beyond merely reckless. I don't think there's anything [the family] could have done to prevent [Mario Paz] from getting killed. This was no different than a home invasion, in terms of what happened to the family." 'It Was Like War,' Neighbor Says Family members said they believed that a robbery was in progress when they heard the shooting. Sheriff's investigators say El Monte police shot the locks off the front and back doors to the house, shot a "diversionary device" into a back bedroom window that illuminated it, and threw a so-called flash-bang grenade on the ground behind the house. Neighbors said they awoke with a jolt when they heard the shooting. "It was like war," said Luz Escamilla, who lives next door. El Monte Police Lt. Craig Sperry, commander of the Special Emergency Response Team that carried out the operation, said up to 20 El Monte officers were involved in the raid. He said he could not comment on specific tactics used that night because of the possibility of litigation. He said Compton police, who have refused all comment, were also at the scene. However, Sperry said, "We always announce, 'El Monte police. Open the door.' " El Monte Assistant Police Chief Bill Ankeny said an explosive entry is a standard SWAT procedure and can involve opening a door with a battering ram or a round of gunfire. "We throw flash-bang grenades. We bust open the doors. You've seen it on TV," Ankeny said. "We do bang on the door and make an announcement--'It's the police'--but it kind of runs together. If you're sitting on the couch, it would be difficult to get to the door before they knock it down." Sleeping on their couch, the Paz family said, was David Martinez, 63, a convalescing friend. He was unhurt. Until the raid occurred, the family said, they had been resting after a routine Monday. Maria Luisa Paz, 51, said her husband, a Mexican immigrant, had been driven to Tijuana for doctor's appointments that morning. She showed a reporter his purchases of medicine prescribed for his heart condition, prostate ailment, and back problems from a 1985 on-the-job injury. She said he also emptied his Tijuana bank account of more than $10,000 in savings, fearing that the money could be lost to the much-publicized computer complications that some people are afraid will occur Jan. 1. She showed a reporter the bank receipt for the withdrawal. Mario took his medicine at 8 p.m. and went to bed, she said. El Monte police showed up about 11 p.m., according to Sheriff's Lt. Marilyn Baker, who is conducting the standard investigation into the officer-involved shooting. Myrna Serrano, 44, a friend of the family who lives in a converted garage at the front of the house, said she awoke to gunfire. "I didn't even hear them say they were police," said Serrano, an employee at an art frame factory. "I thought they were thieves coming to rob us. I never dreamed they would be police busting into the house in camouflage and hoods." Maria Argueta, who works as a nanny in Manhattan Beach, awoke in a back bedroom to the flash-bang grenade and screamed, "Don't kill me," the family said. By that time, Maria Luisa Paz said, she may have heard officers yelling "search warrant," but "I had no idea who they were. They didn't show badges or anything at all. I yelled to my husband, 'Get on the ground! We're being robbed.' " She said she got on the floor in her panties while her husband got his $10,000 from under the bed and put the money and his hands on the bed. At this point, Sheriff's Lt. Baker said, two El Monte officers entered Mario and Maria Luisa's bedroom while six others searched the rest of the house. Conflicting Accounts of Patriarch's Actions The officers said they ordered the couple--in Spanish and English--to show their hands, according to Baker. The lieutenant said Mario Paz "appeared to be reaching for something, and believing him to be arming himself, the officer fired two rounds . . . striking Mr. Paz in the back." His widow described the scene differently: "They yelled and yelled. I said, 'My husband is sick! He's an old man!' I grabbed [the officer's] leg," she recalled. "[The officer] just pointed the gun at my husband and shot." She said the officer, wearing a mask, "just looked at me." Then another officer came in and ordered her in Spanish to "get up and put something on," she said. As police hustled her outside, someone handed her a towel that she draped across her chest. Sheriff's investigators said two of the pistols were in a drawer on the floor near Mario and a third was in a bureau drawer with the rifle. Maria Luisa was allowed to dress before she was put into a mini-van, where she found that her great-nephew, Juan Carlos Mechaca, had been handcuffed when he got home from practicing with his band. His mother, Leonela Ramos, Mario Paz's niece, had been detained when she got home from her night shift at a credit card factory. Maria Luisa's son Jorge, 20, a computer drafter for a Norwalk firm who had been in another bedroom when the raid occurred, was also handcuffed. Altogether, seven people were taken to the Compton Police Department for questioning by El Monte police and Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators. Though they stayed until dawn, the Paz family said they were never read their rights. Sheriff's Lt. Baker said that was because the family was not under arrest--they were detained as witnesses to the shooting. "They were not [detained as] suspects," Baker said. "They were taken in as witnesses to the officer- involved shooting. Witnesses do not get read their Miranda rights. People can be detained in handcuffs for safekeeping." But Jorge Paz said one sheriff's investigator "asked if my dad sold drugs or ever had a problem with anybody. I said, 'No, no.' My dad didn't even want us to smoke or drink. He wanted us all to go to school. He was a good man." The drug suspect named in the warrant is Marcos Beltran Lizarraga. The Paz family said that he lived next door in the early 1980s, that Mario sold him a car six years or so ago and that he occasionally used the Pazes' mailing address. The family said that they sometimes would mark the mail "return to sender" but that on other occasions their father gave it to Beltran's nephew. Mario Paz was pronounced dead at 11:29 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, according to the county coroner's office. At the time he died, he was planning to sell his house and move to Colorado, according to Mario Paz Jr., 31, a computer operations supervisor for the Denver office of a California HMO. "This was a real shock," he said. El Monte Assistant Chief Ankeny said his department has begun an internal investigation. He said two officers were placed on routine administrative leave after the shooting but have since returned to work. "Obviously, the officer who killed the person actually felt he was being threatened," he said. John Bellizzi, director of the International Narcotics Enforcement Assn. in Albany, N.Y., said surprise is an essential element in getting evidence for SWAT team raids. Because of the danger of fighting drug dealers, officers "have to take serious precautions to safeguard their lives, and sometimes unforeseen things happen. It's unavoidable sometimes. These drug dealers are better equipped sometimes than the police are." But David Lynn, a private investigator assigned to the case, said: "Even if this guy was the 'Godfather,' that would not justify the level of violence used in this search." Times staff writer Joseph Trevino and correspondent Richard Winton contributed to this story. * * * What Happened During the Raid An El Monte police SWAT team served a search warrant at a Compton home late on the night of Aug. 9. According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the family in the home, the following occurred: * * * Sources: L.A. County Sheriff's Department, L.A. County coroner's office, Paz family ------------------------------------------------------------------------ For subscription info, go to: http://www.egroups.com/list/piml -> Send "subscribe snetnews " to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -> Posted by: Ed Wolfe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
