Gates Defends His Officers’ Search Methods in Court

Making a rare appearance in federal court, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates on Tuesday defended the methods his officers use when executing search warrants and said that police officials diligently investigate when searches result in citizens’ complaints.

Gates spent nearly three hours testifying in U.S. District Court, hoping to avoid further damages in a case brought by an East Los Angeles man, Jessie Larez, whose nose was broken during an early morning raid of his home by anti-gang officers in June, 1986.

The jury that is hearing the case already has awarded Larez and members of his family $90,503 for injuries and property damage they suffered when six officers, using a search warrant, turned their house “upside down” while looking for a murder weapon allegedly kept by one of Larez’s sons, a purported gang member. No gun was found.

The officers, assigned to Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, were later cleared of any wrongdoing by CRASH supervisors who investigated the family’s formal complaint that excessive force had been used in the raid.

This week, the six-man jury is to decide whether Gates, himself, should bear any liability for the CRASH officers’ actions.

On Tuesday, Gates was grilled by civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman, but remained a study of comportment on the stand, calmly depicting the Police Department as progressive, empathic and unfairly maligned by Larez’s lawsuit.

However, speaking to reporters afterward outside the Los Angeles courtroom of Judge Robert M. Takasugi, a clearly frustrated Gates lashed out at Yagman, Larez and the jury.

“How much is a broken nose worth?” the chief asked. “Given the circumstances in this case . . . I don’t think it’s worth anything. (Larez) is probably lucky that’s all he had broken.

“People keep asking me, ‘Chief, why don’t you do something about gang killings?’ I tell my officers, ‘Why don’t you do something about gang killings?’ And we do something and then (juries) give $90,000.”

Larez, then 55, allegedly rushed the officers who came through the front door of his house near Lincoln High School just after 7 a.m. as his family slept. The raid was preceded by other CRASH officers shattering windows in the back of his house as a diversion.

After hitting one of the officers on the chest, Larez was forced to the floor, kicking and screaming, according to previous testimony in the case. He was arrested for battery on an officer and later pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace. When one of his daughters complained of the intrusion and allegedly tried to scratch an officer with her fingernails, she was forced to the floor by her hair. Various dishes, pots and ceramic statues were destroyed in the search that followed.

Gates suggested Tuesday that the jury has been unfairly influenced by how “cleaned up and beautiful” the Larez family appears while in court.

He added that Yagman, considered a longtime adversary of the Police Department, named him as a defendant in the case and called him to testify because “he’s been a discredited attorney and this was an opportunity for him to get back at me.”

The State Bar of California has recommended that Yagman be suspended from the practice of law for six months for allegedly refusing a client’s demands to return case files, failing to account for $50,000 in client funds and for charging an “unconscionable fee” to another client in a product liability case.

The Larez case is expected to go to the jury today.