BY HARRY RING
LOS ANGELES - Four hundred residents of the Lincoln Heights community joined the family of José Antonio Gutiérrez at a funeral mass. The youth, 14, was killed by a cop July 29.
A stillness filled the street as the mourners emerged from the church behind the teenager's coffin. The silence was pierced by an anguished cry from Maria Ana Gutiérrez, who was less than 20 feet away when her son was killed.
The shooting sparked two days of tense confrontation between the police and enraged residents of the area, who hurled bottles and stones at the cops.
At an impromptu news conference outside the church, the family's lawyer, Antonio Rodríguez, demanded that the police department stop "rushing in to justify the killing," which can only lead to a cover-up. He said a suit has been initiated against the cops for "wrongful death" and violation of the slain youth's civil rights.
According to the police account, Gutiérrez was pointing a gun at them when they shot him. To substantiate this, the cops produced a pistol which they said was found on the other side of a nearby four-foot cement wall. Police officials conceded the gun had no identifiable fingerprints on it.
Seven of those who witnessed the killing insisted to reporters that the cops shot without warning and that the youth was holding a flashlight, not a gun.
Initially, the cops claimed the slain teenager had been shot in the chest. But the coroner's autopsy showed that he was hit by three bullets, two of them in the back, near his shoulder. The third struck him in the side and one grazed his back.
The coroner's office stated that this should not be taken to mean he was shot in the back. Police Chief Willie Williams said the location of the wounds simply indicated the youth had "begun to turn."
A police report claimed, "The officers ordered him to drop the weapon...he instead pointed at the officers." Earlier, police spokesmen said the shooter did not have time to speak to the youth.
The police took another jolt when it was revealed that officer Michael Falvo, who killed young Gutiérrez, had been one of 44 members of the Los Angeles Police Department described by the Christopher Commission as "problem" cops.
Appointed in the wake of the Rodney King beating, the commission found that these cops had an unusually high record of brutality complaints against them.
In 1991, a police board recommended Falvo be fired for provocative conduct. The day after a Latino youth had been killed by the sheriff's deputy, Falvo drove through the housing project where the killing occurred, flashing his finger at residents in an obscene gesture.
Earlier, Falvo pleaded guilty to unnecessarily kicking a man and neglecting to put it in his report. For this, he was suspended 20 days.
Before that he was found him guilty of clubbing two men as they knelt in front of him with their hands behind their heads. One of the victims later said, "He was beating us like we were animals." That drew Falvo a 22-day suspension.
A member of the police "gang" unit, Falvo has been assigned to a desk job since he killed Gutiérrez.