-Caveat Lector- From http://cgi.herald.com/cgi- bin/rc_emailfriend.cgi?mode=print&doc=http://www.miami.com/herald/content /news/local/broward/digdocs/027503.htm }}>Begin PRINTER FORMAT Published Sunday, September 2, 2001 CONSPIRACY, COVERUPS SUSPECTED IN MIAMI POLICE SHOOTINGS BY DAVID KIDWELL AND JOSEPH TANFANI [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Miami Police Department for years ignored strong evidence that its own officers needlessly shot and killed two unarmed teenage robbers, planted guns near their bodies, then lied to cover it up. A Herald investigation reveals striking conflicts between the officers' accounts of the fatal shooting and the evidence itself, raising crucial questions that were never asked and never answered by investigators or the department's top commanders. Even so, the shooting was declared justified and all five officers were sent back to the department's most aggressive street-crime units. Some of those officers later showed up in other questionable shootings where guns were planted or suspects killed. The 1995 deaths of Derrick Wiltshire and Antonio Young -- fleeing 19-year- olds shot in the back in a hail of 37 police bullets -- are also at the center of a federal grand jury investigation into charges of a long-standing conspiracy of coverups by officers and silence by their bosses. At least four other shootings are part of that probe, and indictments are expected within days. ``They shot him like a dog. They were running for their lives,'' said Alice Young, Antonio Young's mother. ``I have no doubt in my mind [the officers] knew they didn't have guns.'' The five officers who fired on the night of Nov. 7, 1995 -- along with their supporters within the department -- insist the shooting was clean, that Young and Wiltshire sealed their own demise when they smashed a tourist's car window, snatched her purse, led police on a chase, and flashed pistols as they jumped over the edge of a downtown I-395 overpass. ``There is no doubt in my mind that was a justified shooting,'' said Raimundo Socorro, who headed the internal affairs investigation. ``I just don't like to see guys' lives ruined when they didn't do anything wrong.'' Still, some investigators close to the case now concede they may have been stymied by a lack of candor from the officers. ``This isn't the 1920s. I can't throw people up against a wall and accuse them of lying to me,'' said retired homicide Detective Luis Albuerne, who led the homicide investigation six years ago. ``Until somebody comes forward and says, `I saw them plant a gun,' there is nothing to prove that allegation. I hope that happens, I really do. But with what I had to work with, I did the best I could.'' And yet, Miami police brass began to question the I-395 shootings as far back as 1997, when their investigators uncovered another gun ``throwdown'' case involving some of the same officers. They never acted on their suspi cions. ``Some of those guys should never have been put back on the street,'' said John Campbell, who headed the second investigation of the shooting. ``It's just that we couldn't prove what we suspected all along. We always felt that was potentially a throwdown case. It never passed the smell test.'' PROBLEMS WITH THE CASE Conflicting stories emerge Interviews, sworn statements and police records reviewed by The Herald reveal serious problems with the case, many buried within the pages of Albuerne's own homicide case file. They include: Eyewitnesses, never interviewed by Miami homicide detectives, who saw no guns in the hands of Young and Wiltshire and who say police chased them away from the scene. Conflicting statements among police officers, at least two of whom also say they never saw the guns on either Young or Wiltshire. Serious holes in police accounts of how they found the suspects' guns. One officer said he picked up a gun next to one of the dying robbers because he was moving around and he feared he could shoot someone; the robber wa s paralyzed by a bullet in his spinal cord, and others said the body was lifeless. The other gun was found more than 100 feet from the spot where the second robber fell. Questions about why Young was shot six times from the back and once in the side of the neck. Two of the shooting officers explain it by saying they fired as he turned to run away. The other, however, said Young was ``fac e-to-face'' with officers and pointing a gun when the officer began to shoot. Emerging evidence that an unknown police officer mistakenly fired three shots at another officer, the only black man at the scene other than the suspects, then failed to report it. Accounts by the victims of the robbery and two eyewitnesses who said the robbers did not use any guns during the smash-and-grab. And no fingerprints were found on either of the two guns. The assignment of internal affairs officer Socorro -- longtime friend and fellow SWAT team member of several of the officers at the scene -- to head the department's disciplinary investigation. In an unusually brief 3 1/2-page report that mentioned none of those problems, Socorro concluded that none of the officers did anything wrong. Socorro said in a recent interview that his longtime friendships had nothing t o do with his judgment. ``Either you have integrity or you don't,'' he told The Herald. ``It doesn't matter who you're friends with or what your assignment is.'' Albuerne and his homicide investigators found no wrongdoing. Neither did Assistant State Attorney Flora Seff or the judge who conducted the inquest, Miami-Dade County Judge Catherine Pooler. Typically, their findings are based almost solely on evidence gathered by homicide detectives. Seff declined to comment and Pooler did not return phone calls. Even the department's internal shooting review panel -- chaired by Raul Martinez, who has since been promoted to chief -- found nothing to criticize. Martinez refused to discuss the problems with the case, citing the grand jury investigation, though he admits he has heard rumors for years that the case was a ``bad shoot.'' He said he cannot recall why his board cleared the I-395 shooting, and he argues that it wasn't the panel's job to ferret out conflicting statements and inconsistencies with the evidence. ``We expect that to come from the investigators, the [internal affairs unit] and the homicide investigators,'' Martinez said. None of the five officers who fired shots from atop the I-395 overpass on that evening -- Jesus ``Jesse'' Aguero, William Hames, Israel ``Izzy'' Gonzalez, John Mervolion and Jorge Garcia -- would agree to be interviewed f or this report. Nor would the two officers who recovered the guns, Jose Quintero and Arturo Beguiristain. These and others in a small group of Miami officers -- veterans who worked together in some of Miami's toughest neighborhoods, earning reputations as tough, aggressive cops -- are at the center of the federal grand jury p robe. OTHER CASES SURFACE Same officers were involved The problems with the shooting at I-395 might never have surfaced if some of the same officers had not been suspected in other throwdown cases years later. The first case came on June 26, 1997, when an unarmed homeless man was shot in the leg by Officer Jorge Castello, who mistook his Walkman-style radio for a gun. A real gun was found nearby, with Aguero's fingerprint on it . Aguero was acquitted on state charges of obstructing justice -- with help from Beguiristain, who told a jury he saw the gun before Aguero arrived. Fired last month by Chief Martinez -- fully four years after his fingerprint was found on the gun -- Aguero still faces a charge of grand theft, for allegedly stealing the gun from his department's property room. That case prompted Miami police commanders to reopen two other shooting cases in 1997, including I-395. Both cases involved Aguero and Beguiristain. Both cases had been investigated and cleared by Socorro, and federal aut horities now suspect that both cases were throwdowns. But Miami police failed to mete out discipline in either case, even though they had evidence that a gun was planted in an April 13, 1996, shooting -- the other case that was reopened -- in which Aguero fired three shots a t another suspect, a fleeing purse snatcher named Steven J. Carter. Martinez also chaired the review board that cleared that shooting. Police traced the weapon in that case -- found by Beguiristain -- to a drug raid conducted one week earlier by Aguero and Quintero, who found one of the guns at the I-395 shooting. Aguero, who accounts for 21 of the 37 bullets fired at Young and Wiltshire, is a common denominator at three of the five shootings being examined by the grand jury. Beguiristain, who said he recovered the gun near Young's body, is among several officers indicted in March on charges of conspiracy to fabricate evidence in the 1996 shooting of Richard Brown, who died in a spray of 122 S WAT team bullets as a warrant was served at his home. In fact, Beguiristain has found guns at the scenes of four separate Miami police shootings since 1995. All four have now piqued the curiosity of federal investigators. The I-395 shooting is at the heart of the grand jury probe. Federal authorities believe it amounted to an execution absolved by top commanders. Wiltshire, Young and two companions were driving around in a gray Chevrolet Caprice looking for victims. They found them at the downtown Miami corner of Northeast Second Avenue and 12th Street. A couple on vacation from Ecuador were stopped at the light in their rented red Ford Taurus when Jerry ``Thump'' Miller ran up to the passenger window and smashed it with a large white stone. Wiltshire and Young got out w ith him. Alvin Coley was driving and stayed in the car. SOME SAW NO GUNS Reports on that point differ None of the victims saw guns. Neither did two watching Miami officers -- Aguero and his partner for the night, Jorge Garcia. They were among an elite group of 10 Miami officers on an undercover Crime Suppression Unit team that had been watching the Ca price, waiting for the occupants to make a move. Beguiristain said that as the Caprice tore away from the intersection, he used his Ford Explorer to block the Caprice's entry to the I-395 ramp. He told investigators the driver rammed his Explorer to escape. But lawyers William Barzee and Alan Leiman -- who were in the car behind the Caprice, and who also saw no guns during the robbery -- say it was Beguiristain's car doing the ramming. It was the first in a series of inconsistencies. By the time the Caprice reached the ramp to I-395 two blocks away, four undercover Miami police cars were on top of them. The suspects slowed the car to a crawl and bailed out. Miller jumped 12 feet from the railing to the embankment and escaped. Alvin Coley also took off, and was captured after a short chase. According to four of the shooting officers, Young and Wiltshire emerged from the Caprice with handguns. Young and Wiltshire, several officers said, straddled the overpass railing more than 20 feet above North Miami Avenue , guns in hand. In sworn statements given to homicide detectives a week later, Aguero and Garcia said they fired as Young and Wiltshire pointed guns from the expressway -- before the robbers jumped down to the street. ``As they go over the railing they had guns,'' Garcia told investigators. ``At this point I discharge in fear of my life. . . . I could not believe it. They actually jumped from the expressway.'' SHOOTING IS DESCRIBED Officer says suspect pointed gun But one officer, Gonzalez, told investigators he didn't see a gun in the hand of either suspect while they were on the expressway. And he, Mervolion and Hames, the other shooting officers, say no one shot until after Young and Wiltshire hit the street below. Mervolion said he saw Young sitting on the pavement, pointing a gun up toward the officers. ``That's when the shooting started,'' Mervolion told investigators. As other officers fired down at Young, Mervolion said, he focused on Wiltshire -- who had gotten up and was running northbound on North Miami Avenue. He fired two shots at Wiltshire's back. ``Why did you feel like your life was in danger when he was running away from you?'' asked homicide supervisor Lt. Bobbie Meeks. ``He could have easily turned,'' Mervolion answered. ``He had already committed a violent felony. In my opinion, he pointed that gun at the other officers and I was really concerned they could easily have been shot at.'' Mervolion is among several officers subpoenaed to testify before the federal grand jury who refused to answer questions by asserting their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He declined to be interviewed. Gonzalez told investigators he was the one to tackle Coley, and then he managed to get off two of his own shots at Wiltshire as he fled up North Miami Avenue. At that point, Gonzalez said, he saw a handgun in the right ha nd of the fleeing Wiltshire. The five officers who fired their weapons are the only ones who saw guns in the hands of Wiltshire and Young. At least two other officers who witnessed the shooting, including Roland Sampson, Hames' partner for the night, saw no guns. Sampson, in fact, said he saw one of the robbers hanging from both hands before he jumped from the expressway to the street. Sgt. Rafael ``Ray'' Martinez, the Crime Suppression Team supervisor, wasn't asked by investigators whether he saw weapons. Like Mervolion, Martinez asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer questions before the grand jury. Martinez told The Herald he arrived at the shooting scene in time to see Wiltshire running around the corner, but ``I don't have any recollection'' of whether he had a gun. He said the shooting was ``100 percent completely justified'' and that any assertion that guns were planted is ``ridiculous.'' Martinez said he declined to answer questions at the grand jury on the advice of his attorney. `THEY WERE RUNNING' Witness: Suspects didn't shoot There were also civilian witnesses who saw no guns, although their names don't show up on any Miami police reports. ``Police just opened up fire,'' Jameka Nicole Brown said in a 1998 interview with The Herald. ``The guys weren't shooting back -- they were running.'' Brown, who had just come from Bayside Marketplace with two friends, said she was below the ramp when she watched Young jump over the highway overpass as police started shooting at him. He was unarmed, she said. ``We were saying to him, `You all right? You all right?' '' Brown said. ``He was dead.'' Brown has also told the grand jury that she and her friends were told to ``get lost'' by police when they arrived. ``Everybody in the area was saying those boys didn't have guns,'' Brown told The Herald. ``We were screaming and hollering.'' She said nobody wanted to hear it. The Young family's lawyer, Jeffrey Jacobs, said Brown and her two friends testified in sworn statements that Young didn't have a gun and that they felt intimidated by an officer who told them to get in their car and leave. Jacobs and attorney Michael Feiler, representing the Wiltshire family, are suing the city for damages. ``The only concern of the officer was for them to get away,'' Jacobs said. Albuerne, the homicide detective, said he was surprised when federal investigators told him about the eyewitnesses. ``Like I said, I did the best I could with what I had,'' he said. ``I didn't have those witnesses.'' Young died on the pavement where he fell. Hames said he fired after he saw Young sitting on the pavement, facing other officers and pointing a gun at them. Aguero and Garcia told investigators they began shooting as Young turned to run away. But an autopsy revealed that six bullets entered Young from the back. The fatal bullet, shot by Aguero, entered the right side of his neck and lodged in his spinal cord. The medical examiner who testified at the inquest said that Young's spinal cord was ``badly injured'' and that Young would have been paralyzed. He ``wouldn't be able to move at all,'' said Jay Barnhart, adding that the bo dy could have convulsed involuntarily. That, too, contradicts the story of Beguiristain, who told investigators that night that he was the first officer to approach Young and that he was forced to ``pick up'' the gun because the suspect was still alive and he feared he would reach for the weapon. ``He was in pain. He was moving around,'' Beguiristain said. A QUESTION OF PROCEDURE Officer turned in `offender's gun' Questions surfaced immediately about why Beguiristain would violate procedure and pick up crucial evidence. Beguiristain took the gun to Sgt. Ray Martinez, his immediate supervisor. ``He told me he had the offender's gun,'' Martinez told investigators. ``I told him, `What the hell are you doing with it?' He told me he was still alive.'' Beguiristain's account also conflicts with that of one of the witnesses, Brown, who said Young was lifeless, and that of Officer Sampson, who said he was the first to approach Young's lifeless body. There was no gun, Sampson told investigators, and there was no Beguiristain. ``Art Beguiristain? No. I don't know where Art was,'' Sampson said. ``I didn't see him, not until later when it was roped off.'' As for a gun: ``I didn't see it.'' The gun Beguiristain says he picked up near Young was loaded with the wrong caliber ammunition and likely would not have fired, according to department investigators. The other gun did not have a round in the chamber and also wouldn't have fired, according to the homicide reports and investigators. Many of the contradictions were never addressed in Albuerne's report or in Socorro's internal affairs report. ``That doesn't prove anything,'' Socorro said. ``You can take any incident in this country with that many witnesses and get different stories from each one. Just because one officer claims not to see another at a specific time? What does that prove? ``Artie has integrity,'' Socorro said. ``He is a good guy who has done nothing wrong in any of these cases.'' Said Richard Sharpstein, Beguiristain's lawyer: ``Art is an aggressive, outstanding street cop. He has been lucky enough to seize numerous weapons at dangerous scenes. The criticism now is nothing more than Monday morning quarterbacking.'' Sharpstein declined to discuss details of the case. There are more inconsistencies about the gun Wiltshire allegedly was carrying that night. Wiltshire was shot twice in the upper back, at least once by Hames, the autopsy shows. Wounded, Wiltshire managed to run a block and a half around the corner of North Miami Avenue and Northwest 13th Street, where he colla psed in an alleyway. Officer Willie Bell was the first to chase him. He found Wiltshire face down about 10 feet into the alleyway. Wiltshire lunged toward the bushes, Bell said. Bell pulled Wiltshire away by the legs, struggled, and handcuffe d him. ``I told them there might be something in the bushes. I heard a thump,'' Bell told The Herald in a recent interview. ``I told them to clear the alleyway and bring the dogs. I don't know what happened after that. I never s aw a gun.'' Bell left the scene and went back to headquarters to give a statement. Later, Officer Jose Quintero arrived at the scene. He claimed to have found the gun in the alleyway in the bushes, but not the bushes where Bell arrested Wiltshire. Investigators were puzzled. The gun was more than 100 fe et deeper into the alleyway and around the corner of a two-story warehouse. DISCREPANCY PERSISTS Gun's location elicits surprise Although Albuerne's homicide report mentions ``the great distance between where the suspect was located in the alleyway and where the gun was,'' the discrepancy was never resolved. No fingerprints were found on either gun. Bell, the officer who caught Wiltshire, appeared before the grand jury on Aug. 9, prepared to support the officers' actions. But he told The Herald he left the witness chair angry and disillusioned by what he learned from federal prosecutors. For one thing, he learned for the first time where the gun was actually found -- around a corner 100 feet from where he handcuffed Wiltshire. ``I was surprised when they told me where that gun was,'' Bell said. ``It was nowhere close to where I heard that thump. It doesn't make any sense to me.'' He also was disturbed to learn about three bullet strike marks and two police-issued bullets found at the entrance to the alleyway. If all the officers were standing where they said they were when they fired, it's unclear how the bullets could have missed a two-story building between them and the alleyway. Bell suspects that a fellow officer may have been following him in the pursuit and mistakenly fired shots at him that night, thinking he was Wiltshire. Wiltshire and Bell are both black. ``I was hearing all this stuff for the first time and it blew me away,'' Bell said. ``It's very possible people in my own department shot at me, and nobody investigated it. Nobody even told me. ``It's very puzzling to me why these questions weren't asked.'' Herald Staff writers Frances Robles and Manny Garcia contributed to this report. � 2001 The Miami Herald and wire service sources. 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