Family of Youth Killed by Officers Files Suit

The family of a Pacoima teenager filed suit on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Police Department, alleging that officers violated the boy’s civil rights when they shot and killed him in a bizarre confrontation in November.

Felix Valenzuela Jr., 16, was unarmed, disoriented and naked, with cuts all over his body, when he was approached Nov. 20 about 4:26 a.m. at San Fernando Road and Van Nuys Boulevard by LAPD Officers Karen Thiffault and Daniel Palma.

The teenager allegedly was acting in a bizarre manner, screaming unintelligibly and charging at Thiffault, police said.

Thiffault tried to get away, but Valenzuela allegedly reached for “and [on] at least one occasion grabbed” her holstered service revolver, police said. Fearing for her life, and believing that Valenzuela was under the influence of PCP, Thiffault fired three rounds at the teenager.

An autopsy found traces of LSD in Valenzuela’s body, the coroner reported.

The suit alleges that Thiffault and Palma “employed flawed and substandard tactics” during the incident. It also said that those tactics “resulted from the flawed, inadequate and substandard training provided by the LAPD to its officers regarding the handling [of] unarmed suspects who are mentally ill, unstable or under the influence of drugs or who are reported to be suffering from mental, psychological and/or emotional distress and disabilities.”

Attorneys for the family compared the Valenzuela shooting with that of Margaret Mitchell, a mentally disturbed homeless woman killed by police last year.

By a narrow vote Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Commission found that the fatal shooting of Mitchell violated department policy. The vote supported the conclusion of an investigation by Inspector General Jeffrey C. Eglash.

“This case needs to get the scrutiny the Margaret Mitchell case has gotten,” said the family’s attorney, Gregory Moreno.

“The bottom line is these people are mentally ill,” Moreno said. “Let’s get a game plan how to get these people down without killing them.”

LAPD Cmdr. David Kalish declined to comment, saying only, “It’s important to make a distinction between a mentally ill person and someone high on drugs.”

Detectives in the Robbery-Homicide Division are investigating the shooting, but have not issued their report, Kalish said.

The Valenzuela suit also alleges that the incident was part of a pattern of police abuse of minorities and that by “overlooking the repeated misconduct and criminal acts by their subordinate officers . . . [the LAPD and the city] established a custom and practice of condoning and ratifying such misconduct and criminal activity.”

The two officers “willfully withheld or delayed emergency medical attention from Felix Valenzuela Jr. and/or denied access by emergency medical personnel” to the teenager, the suit alleges.

On the night of the shooting, Thiffault, 38, a veteran police officer with 12 years on the force, was training her partner, Palma, a rookie four months out of the LAPD’s academy, authorities said.

The fact that the youth was naked and unarmed has sparked criticism from family members who question why the officers did not use nonlethal means to resolve the situation.

“It was wrong what the LAPD did. They killed my brother,” said Ezequiel Valenzuela, 23. “He was totally naked and they just shot him.”

“A deadly weapon is the last resort, but that was the first thing that officer lady went to. They didn’t use anything else but a gun,” Ezequiel Valenzuela said.

The youth’s father said no matter what mistakes his son made, he did not deserve to die the way he did. “To a parent, all their children are good. . . . He was never a bad son to us,” said Felix Valenzuela Sr., 47, a construction worker.