LAPD Role Questioned in Killings

VAN NUYS —  Members of a controversial LAPD unit trailed four suspects after a robbery, then shot three of them dead in an unnecessary act of self-defense, a public defender told a jury Tuesday.

The sole survivor, Michael Rochelle Smith, 24, slipped out of the getaway car under a hail of gunfire. On Tuesday, the trial in which Smith is charged with the murders of two of his alleged accomplices unfolded inside Van Nuys Superior Court.

In his opening statement, Deputy Public Defender James Coady, who is representing Smith, attempted to turn tables in the case and suggested it was the four officers from the Special Investigation Section who should be on trial for using illegitimate self-defense.

“The SIS has a pattern, a history, of creating a scenario where they have a right to self-defense,” Coady told the jury.

SIS, the elite Los Angeles Police Department unit that tracks the city’s most wanted criminals, is haunted by numerous allegations of misconduct. But attempts to prove those claims in court have met with mixed success.

In 1996 Robert Wayne Cunningham, whose accomplices were shot to death by an SIS unit, was convicted of their murder. He tried to invoke allegations of wrongful death, but his claim was rejected.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Fisch, who is prosecuting the Smith case, said the explanation that the SIS officers set up the suspects is invalid.

“This was a take-down robbery, where everyone was ordered to get down. It was a robbery, and weapons were used,” Fisch asserted in her opening statement.

SIS officers began tailing Smith only after he approached police detectives and identified his three partners as suspects in a series of armed robberies. On Feb. 25, 1997, the SIS watched as Smith, along with Eric Fields, Kirk Deffenbaugh and Kim Benton cased the ClassRoom bar in Northridge. When the group returned about 9:30 p.m., three of them entered and robbed the patrons, while Benton waited in the car.

When the three suspects came out, the car sped off with the SIS officers in pursuit. The suspects drove into a cul-de-sac where they were boxed in by SIS officers. Police say Fields then leaned out of the window and aimed his revolver at them. An exchange of gunfire ensued--leaving Fields, Deffenbaugh and Benton dead.

Smith is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of Benton and Deffenbaugh.