I'm glad I don't live there. BTW, is that anywhere near Modesto? Or perhaps Compton, or maybe Dinuba?
11-year-old killed
in California drug raidby
TY PHILLIPS, Modesto Bee of California
MODESTO, Calif. (September 14, 2000) - An 11-year-old Modesto boy was fatally shot early Wednesday morning when police SWAT team officers on a federal narcotics sweep raided his parents' home. Police said the shooting was an accident.Alberto Sepulveda, a seventh-grader at Prescott Senior Elementary School, was pronounced dead in his home in the north Modesto neighborhood commonly known as Highway Village. He died from one shotgun round to the back, Police Chief Roy Wasden said.
Wasden would not give any other details of the shooting or raid, not even where in the small house the shooting took place. He said details will not be available until investigations have been completed.
"Our entire department is in shock," Wasden said. "And our heartfelt sympathy goes out to the family of the child, and the officers who were involved in this tragic incident."
The shot came from officer David Hawn, whose weapon accidentally discharged during the raid, Wasden said. Hawn, a 21-year department veteran, has served on the SWAT team for 18 1/2 years. Following department policy, Hawn was placed on paid leave.
Hawn and six other officers had been ordered to enter the house and secure it so federal agents could serve drug warrants.
The boy's father, Moises Sepulveda, was arrested and booked on charges of methamphetamine trafficking. The boy's mother and two siblings, ages 8 and 14, also were home during the raid.
Officers knocked on the door at 6:16 a.m. Five minutes later, a call went out for an ambulance and Fire Department personnel.
Police swarmed in and out of the house all day, and Stanislaus County coroner's deputies did not remove the boy's body until after 2 p.m.
As is routine with officer-involved shootings, separate investigations are being conducted by the district attorney's office, the Police Department's Crimes Against Persons Unit and Professional Standards Unit, and the city attorney's office.
"Our preliminary investigation indicates that the shooting was accidental," Wasden said at his first major press conference since becoming chief Aug. 7.
The department could not immediately provide a list of police shootings, but no one could remember a case in which an officer had killed a child.
As some officers worked inside the house, others stood grim-faced outside, talking in small groups. Neighbors stood in front of their homes, wondering what had happened on their street.
A potted plant had been tipped off the house's porch and onto the lawn. A police shield rested on the porch.
Neighbors leaned around yellow police tape, trying to sneak a look inside the home.
"It's a war zone all around this village," said Charley Ney, 44, who lives in the neighborhood. "It gets crazy sometimes."
Ney leaned on a fence several doors from the crime scene, talking with neighbors Bill Blair, 41, and Lloyd Little, 55. The men knew someone had been shot in a drug raid, but they had no idea it was a boy.
Blair said drugs are nothing new to Highway Village. He has lived in the area all his life. The men knew late-night traffic at the house is common, but it was not something they watched closely.
"When you live out here, there's always something going on," Blair said. "When you drive around, you don't look too much at people like that. You don't watch them because they're watching you."
Wednesday night, neighbors stood at the edge of driveways and lawns, swapping stories of concern, shock and grief.
"I didn't ever think anything like this could happen at that house, to that family," former next-door neighbor Nadia Chuca, 23, said. "He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time; it's just sad that this happened to an 11-year-old. ... I saw him grow up."
The Sepulveda family has lived at the home for about five years. Fourteen-year-old Melissa Gold lived across the street until recently.
She said Alberto taught bicycle tricks to her 9-year-old brother, Brian.
"My little brother, he's been sad all day. He tried to ask me why the cop shot him. I didn't know how to say it in sign language," she said. "My brother's deaf."
Sam Climber walked his 9-year-old son, Sam Jr., in front of the Sepulveda house to try to make sense of Wednesday's shooting.
His son, he said, played daily with Alberto.
"We would play hide-and-go-seek, ride our bikes and have water balloon fights," the young Climber said. "I sort of could not believe it; I didn't think kids could get shot."
Counseling services were provided Thursday for students at Chrysler and Prescott schools, said Judy French, a secretary in the Stanislaus Union School District. Alberto attended Chrysler last year.
Wednesday's raid was part of a drug trafficking investigation that began in January 1999, said Robert Dey, a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
He said authorities had identified a Stanislaus County drug ring that was making and selling large quantities of methamphetamine. Wednesday's action involved 14 simultaneous raids at houses around the county.
Officers arrested 14 people, Dey said, and were seeking four others.
SWAT teams called upon for Wednesday's operation were from the Sacramento and San Francisco offices of the FBI, the DEA, the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department and the Lodi Police Department.
"With the violent nature of methamphetamine traffickers, we try to take all the precautions to avoid anyone getting hurt. This is a tragic situation for all parties involved," Dey said.
NO DRUG LINK TO FAMILY IN FATAL RAID, POLICE SAY
The El Monte Police Department has no evidence that anyone in the family of Mario Paz--a 65-year-old man fatally shot in the back by an El Monte officer during a search of his home Aug. 9--was involved in drug trafficking, nor did officers when they shot their way into the house in the nighttime raid, a senior police official said.
El Monte Assistant Police Chief Bill Ankeny said he was unsure if his department's narcotics unit even knew whether the family was living at the Compton home when it was raided by the SWAT team. He said the team of up to 20 officers--who shot the front and back doors open as the family slept--was looking for evidence that could be used in a case against Chino drug suspect Marcos Beltran Lizarraga, who had been released on bail the morning of the raid.
"We didn't have information of the Paz family being involved in narcotics trafficking," Ankeny said in an interview Thursday. "To my knowledge, right now, we don't have any information that the Paz family was dealing in narcotics. To our knowledge they were not."
CALIFORNIA SWAT TEAM RAID - $6,000,000 SETTLEMENT.
FATHER KILLED IN HOME "INVASION" BY MASKED
MEN - THE BUSINESS END OF GOVERNMENT OUT OF CONTROL.
Fatal raid settled for $6m
Dinuba family's award against police may set state record.
fresnobee.com
The Fresno Bee
By Jerry Bier
The Fresno Bee
(Published March 31, 2000)The family of a Dinuba man gunned down by police in a failed SWAT raid nearly three years ago agreed to a $6 million settlement with the city Thursday, ending an ongoing legal battle.
Arturo J. Gonzalez, one of the lawyers who represented the family, said the settlement accomplishes everything the family set out to do after Ramon Gallardo Sr. was killed.
"We prov-ed that the entry into the Gallardo home was unconstitutional and we proved that arresting Mrs. Carmen Gallardo and her family was unconstitutional," Gonzalez said.
"Dinuba no longer has a SWAT team and we have obtained a record award. There is nothing more to prove. Justice has prevailed."
The settlement by the family of Ramon Gallardo Sr. is believed to be the largest ever against law enforcement in California.
By comparison, a Los Angeles civil jury awarded Rodney King $3.8 million in connection with a 1991 beating by police officers.
Gallardo, 64, was shot 13 to 15 times during a police raid on the family home in Dinuba in July 1997 while officers served a search warrant looking for a weapon reportedly used in an attempted murder in Visalia. No such weapon was found in the Gallardo home.
Rosemary McGuire, one of the lawyers who represented the city and the police officers, said in a separate interview Thursday that the settlement includes damages for the family and all legal fees.
"I think it's been a difficult case for the plaintiffs and the defendants, and I can only assume everyone is relieved that it's over," McGuire said.
Police had said Gallardo armed himself with a knife when officers, wearing camouflage uniforms, hoods and masks, entered the home about 7 a.m. July 11, 1997.
But Gonzalez, as he had argued to the jury, told reporters at a news conference that no fingerprints ever were found on the pocketknife police said Gallardo held and Gonzalez suspected it was planted by the officers.
The search warrant was based on a statement by an informant who said he had sold the weapon to one of the Gallardo sons. He reportedly later recanted the statement.
After the shooting, officers took Carmen Gallardo and members of her family to police headquarters and held them there for hours before releasing them.
Gonzalez said the family remains upset that officer Jon Reineccius, who fired the fatal shots, remains on the Dinuba police force and never has been disciplined.
Lawyer notes jurors' race
A jury awarded the Gallardo family $12.5 million a year ago this month, but the total was later reduced to $7.5 million by U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger.
The judge upheld a $5 million award to Gallardo's widow and $175,000 to each of his 13 children, but concluded that the jury's additional $5 million award to the estate was excessive.
The city appealed the verdict and that process was continuing when the settlement was reached.
Gonzalez noted that seven of the eight jurors on the civil jury that heard the federal court case were white.
"I say that because there are some people who believe that a Mexican-American family cannot obtain justice in Fresno and that that they cannot obtain justice from white jurors," Gonzalez said. "And that's simply not true. And this case helped prove that."
Although the family did not attend the news conference they did issue statements through Gonzalez.
Carmen Gallardo said she remains devastated by the loss of her husband, but "living with the tragedy is a little bit easier knowing the judge and the jury ruled in our favor. I pray that this does not happen to any other family."
Settlement sends message
Rudy Gallardo, a son, said the loss still hurts. "I think of my father all of the time," he said. "Maybe this settlement will help to prevent another family from having to suffer the way we have."
Robert Y. Chan, who served as co-counsel for the Gallardo family, said he hopes the decision sends a message to police departments "to re-evaluate their procedures and make sure they are in compliance with the law. And to respect the limits imposed by the Constitution."
Gonzalez declined to say how much of the $6 million settlement will go toward lawyer's fees, but said the portion for his firm, Morrison & Foerster of San Francisco, will be placed in an account that funds public interest cases such as the Gallardos'.
Wanger had awarded a total of $930,000 in legal fees and costs.
Why? Because it was exactly the way they responded... Am I still irrational? And so now, you are questioning the response of a SWAT with impeccable qualifications...
So now the REAL police work needs to be performed by civilians, as the SWAT team is too cowardly, inept and/or undermanned to properly react to a situation where there is REAL danger?
I'd call that ungrateful...
I'd say the SWAT team should be disbanded and REAL officers put in their place if it was in fact the SWAT team than chickened out and allowed the civilian to handle the armed robber himself or herself.
So it appears that SWAT teams in CA only go after innocent civilians in their homes these days. What big brave men they are...
Most rational people are more deft at concealing their tautologies, unless you mean that the San Diego SWAT team has the same procedure of using a store clerk as unwitting bait when they're staking out an expected armed robbery.