IO ) It was a gruesome scene. Consrderedthe critically injured Mendez Garcia to get out of the shack.

Bleedand almost certainly heading into :k, Mendez was made to crawl out and quickly surrounded by deputies. Paralies arrived, ripping off his clothes to 1 his wounds. 5 Mendez lay on the ground, nude and >rely wounded, Minster videotaped . Minster can be heard trying to get idez to say that he'd pointed his BB at Conley. Filled with terror, Mendez jatedly says he did not point his BB at Conley. )ne more time," Minster says. "Why*d point the gun at my deputies?" didn't, sir," Mendez cries out. He tells .ster the BB gun was "on my bed, and I t to move it, sir, so I could get up. Sir, not a bad guy." He repeatedly says he's ry," which Sheriff's investigators and iuty DA Alarcon intently focused on in r reports. endez and Garcia were taken to Anpe Valley Hospital. The next day, Oct. ; Mendez fought back fears that his ly pulverized right leg would be ampud, Sheriff's Homicide sergeants Gray Marty Rodriguez questioned him. Acling to a transcript, Rodriguez assures idez that he's "not in any custody." at a Sheriff's incident report later wed that the department immediately Mendez as a suspect. In that Oct. l dent report, Mendez :cused of "assault i deadly weapon... i peace officer" and indishfing a] firearm in ace officer's presence." Dnley and Pederson portrayed as Angel idez's victims, uring the hospital rview, Mendez again logizes. But as Gray Rodriguez encourage to say he pointed BB gun at Conley, idez rebuffs them: "I not aim it at them, and insists he doesn't w anyone named ,*Mendez's .nie O'Dell. Mendez i, "I was, like, 'No, ise, stop, don't shoot me!' I they shot again and again and again r I dropped everything." endez and Garcia, who had criminal >rds, are not model citizens. They eboth convicted in February 2OO8 of sdemeanor willful cruelty to a child," jrding to the L.A. County District jrney's Office. A month later, Mendez convicted of misdemeanor possesi of a controlled substance. lortly after the shooting, Garcia, who r married Mendez, tells investigators : she used to abuse meth but got sober 008. She admits that Mendez still uses gs, telling investigator Rodriguez, "I 't keep somebody clean." lie Sheriff's Department charged Menwith pointing "an imitation firearm," then-District Attorney Steve Cooley's :e declined to prosecute. Deputy DA IBS Garrison, who heads the Justice tem Integrity Division, says there was

ties to undergo "tactics" training and to review the incident. Ryckman is outraged. "They just storm these places and do whatever the hell they want," he says. "We're lucky we didn't end up with two people dead." About 20 miles outside Lancaster next to Highway 14, a huge billboard announces that personal-injury lawyer R. Rex Parris has won $921 million in verdicts and settlements. Parris, who is also the mayor of Lancaster, was first elected in 2OO8 as a law-and-order man. But he got into hot water with civil rights leaders by strongly supporting the armed Sheriff's deputies who entered apartments to check for Section 8 housing violations. Parris, an imposing man with a full, white beard, has made local and national headlines several times. He once said Lancaster was "growing a Christian community" and proposed playing bird chatter on loudspeakers on a main thoroughfare to spruce up the town. When LA. Weekly

his past statements and actions concerning Section 8. Yet several police experts and watchdogs are not convinced, given events such as the shooting in the backyard shack, that Baca has a grip on things. In its blistering report, the Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence deemed Baca's response to excessive force in the jails "insufficient" and noted a "failure of leadership" at the top. Civil rights attorney Paz points to findings by the commission that Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, Baca's recently departed right-hand man, urged deputies to "work in the gray area'" and "undermined the credibility of Internal Affairs Bureau on more than one occasion." Paz says Sheriff's Department leaders were "reinforcing" the unwritten policy that supervisors should let deputies "do their jobs as they see fit." That, he says, "encourages violence." Paz now is assisting in a federal lawsuit

contacted Parris about the Mendez case, he described the incident as "tragic" but wouldn't comment further. Throughout L.A. County, small cities like Lancaster, West Hollywood and Compton pay the Sheriff to provide police services. Baca spokesman Whitmore says there's a "combined" and "community" effort between these towns and the Sheriff as to how deputies carry out their work. Catherine Lhamon, an attorney with Public Counsel, the nation's largest pro bono law firm, says Parris "declared a war on Section 8," and deputies acted as his muscle. Her firm sued Lancaster and the Sheriff's Department and won a settlement. Before the lawsuit, she says, 74 percent of the city's Section 8 investigations involved deputies. In L.A. County, the figure is only 8 percent. "It was aberrant how involved [the deputies] were,"

involving Kenneth Rivera III, who was killed in Lynwood in 2012 by a Sheriff's deputy who shot him in the back. Tom Parker, the former head of L.A.'s FBI office, read the Sheriff's and L.A. County District Attorney reports on the Mendez shooting, as well as David Drexler's opening statement at trial. He has come to suspect that COPS HIT and TOP were engaged in the "very common" practice of "testi-lying" after a bad shoot. Parker is a retired 24-year veteran of the FBI whose distinguished career included undercover investigations, police corruption and brutality cases and investigations of agent-involved shootings. Last year, the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara gave him a Heroes of Justice Award for his work on criminaljustice reform. Parker says police sometimes lie about

deputy ever saw big, white Ron at Albertsons or whether the pu informant even existed. "From that point forward," Pa referring to the deputies' huddh Albertsons, "there's really faulty procedures happening here." Nc O'Dell leave Albertsons, so the c ties were not in a "hot pursuit" t Hughes' home. Nor was there a and immediate threat to the pub Parker says, "Without a warra stantial probable cause... you dc a right to go into the backyard a through buildings, never mind He says the killing of Paula Hug man shepherd was wrong. "If yo no right to be on the property, y< no right to shoot the dog." Professor O'Donnell agrees th there's not an emergency, "You to have a warrant to go into som house." But he notes that due to tional pressures, officers and th manders often feel they can't ad were wrong. O'Donnell adds, "If you can't I ful, then what are your reports g say?" Parker explains, "If you opera the premise that [police] had nc be there, that damages the self-] aspect of the shooting.... Angel Jennifer are innocent victims ir situation." O'Donnell says it's also "inten that Mendez was not prosecutec pointing an im gun. "He basic, do a crime," the says. "He was s: his home." O'Donnell saj uties had a hard explanation for bullets into a 7-! shack. "Cops an always going to main issue, whic guy had a gun." Parker says he it's possible that deputies were in in looking for ille activity at the ho Larsen and Hug! weren't out to fin O'Dell at all. He s Sheriff's version of events simp pass his smell test. Baca spokesman Whitmore s< can paint the picture that every cahoots, which is fine.... But whi thing is said and done, [Mende2 the shooting." The men representing Angel before Judge Fitzgerald have be ing on the case for two years, bu still get outraged over the Sheri district attorney's investigation says of the DA's office, "They dc any independent investigation' criticizes the Justice System.'Iry Division's weighty name asj"a n For Ryckman, the halfhearted saw made by police oversight ai ties to determine what really ha that day haunts him the most, "j up this chain of command," he s

t in the area. The Weekly misance-abatement teams ity Supervisor Michael AnErequently led by Sheriff's : aggressively policing the iomes of residents often minorities to ferret out or land use violations, id, the teams created an ish by truckers, retirees and the region's independent
rear, Lancaster deputies ' investigated for using disractices against mostly poor ino Lancaster residents of subsidized, Section 8 rental [ rights leaders, with help lounsel Law Center, sued ithe Sheriff's Department surveillance and harassion 8 recipients, claiming ften initiated 'compliance :tion 8 tenants' homes >ly to harass and intimidate." snt, Baca's department :koff.) Dersonal-injury attorney the federal lawsuit against ind deputies Conley and shooting Angel Mendez. Ryckman say Mendez's idment right to a reasontion of privacy was violated es entered his home witht and failed to announce :e. They claim Mendez was : excessive force, resulting in c injuries s."

MM-

program and been pulled over in his vehicle by deputies but had bolted on foot, leaving a toddler behind. After that, according to the Sheriff's Department, deputies sought O'Dell for "felony child endangerment" and violating his parole but couldn't find him. The Sheriff's Department labeled O'Dell "armed and dangerous." That was a somewhat dramatic description, probably inspired by the fact that he'd eluded deputies and raised their ire. O'Dell's arrest record showed

**,' So Conley, Pederson, Minster and deputies Billy Cox and Veronica Ramirez headed to Hughes' home, just three minutes from Albertsons. Another team went to Larsen's home. According to a Sheriff's Department document, the Community-Oriented Policing Services Bureau to which COPS HIT is assigned is "highly specialized" and provides "prevention, intervention and suppression law enforcement services" to Sheriff's stations. Under the bureau, the High-Impact Team, or HIT, handles "quality-of-life issues," serves warrants,

" '" '

HP

3t important if it's a mansion It's just a matter of an expectaacy." it a verdict from U.S. District lael Fitzgerald, hoping to win : their client. kesman Whitmore says, "Lawtell the whole story, and this Jy doesn't. He was pointing a he deputies, and that's why he ted, the battling sides don't irious facts. But certain intriguhave emerged in investigae Sheriff's Department and d Ryckman. the shooting, deputies from the station's COPS HIT unit and its biously titled Target-Oriented POP) team gathered outside an s market on 2Oth Street West. A iment quotes Sgt. Greg Minster deputies "got some info" that Dell, a big, white parolee and I^T ncor Viarl been sootted at

ISWTHEBiGITWENTTiWN MEDIATELY." -BEPUTY BILLY MX

no violence in his long history of drug possession, DUIs and driving without a license. Minster and his deputies including Conley and Pederson swarmed Albertsons. But they didn't find O'Dell. While still at the supermarket, they got a tip that he might be at a nearby residence. In a deposition, Sheriff's Deputy Claudia Rissling testified that her informant claimed to have spotted someone looking like O'Dell riding a bike on l8th Street West near Paula Hughes' home. Rissling informed the COPS HIT and TOPS deputies that two people lived in a shack behind Hughes' home. According to Mendez's attorney, Drexler, Rissling even "identified Angel and Jennifer by name." Rissling said her informant told her that "independently" canvases areas and conducts "saturation patrol." In essence, they are troubleshooters. Conley and Pederson were part of COPS HIT. Capt. Robert J. Tubbs, who commands the COPS bureau, declined to talk with the Weekly. But Eugene O'Donnell, a police-procedures expert at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, says teams such as COPS HIT and TOPS can be troublesome. "When you establish specialized units," O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and prosecutor, says "you have to be careful that there's not spin-off. You had that problem with the Los Angeles Police Department, where the supervision [was] lax" toward the anti-gang CRASH unit, leading to the Rampart scandal. "f> 1- ~-l^lHnn W stuff that's not

only underscores the department s over-aggressiveness. "Why would you call yourself that?" a dismayed Eliasbe asks. "Are you going to call yourself an assassination team? We don't want ou police to be 'hit teams.' There's no goo that comes out of it, branding yourself very aggressive way." As young recruits, COPS HIT deput Conley and Pederson had both worked Baca's North Facility jail at the Pitche Detention Center in Castaic, where a mer prisoner told the Citizens' Comm sion on Jail Violence that he underwe seven strip searches after an inmate ri and was handcuffed and left naked a shower for six hours. The commis sion found that Baca's jailers often u humiliation tactics. As Conley and Pederson arrived a Hughes' home that afternoon, Conle later told investigators, their job was clear the backyard. Meanwhile, Mins Cox and Ramirez went to Hughes' fro door, banging on it with a rock and de manding entry, according to videotap testimony from neighbor Charles Gre Hughes refused to open her door to deputies, Green said, so the deputies u a "battering ram" on her front door. Th had no search warrant, but she finally them in. Ronnie O'Dell wasn't there, n did police find a cache of drugs. According to a Sheriff's report, Conl and Pederson meanwhile approached tiny backyard shack constructed of ply wood, with an air conditioner protrudi from its side. Con told investigator j, . . . he opened th A >-^A. door witho identifyi himself saw the "barrel of a rifle" pointed at hi and yelled "Gu He explained, "I start firing and backing away almost like instinct." More than six months later, on April Sgt. Patrick Kim asks Conley, "How m time passed between the time you saw the suspect and the time you fired you weapon?" Conley responds, "Maybe 15 second That's more than enough time for a deputy to shout "Freeze! Police!" and t cover. When asked about this anomaly Deputy DA Alarcon couldn't recall it. S tells the Weekly, "I reviewed everything that was provided to me. It appeared to a thorough and complete investigation On May 25, about eight months afte the shooting, Alarcon concluded that Conley and Pederson "acted in lawful self-defense." As Conley unloaded his gun toward Mendez and Garcia, Pederson later tol investigators, she feared for Conley's l and fired off five rounds from her 9mm Beretta. Deputies Cox and Ramirez and Sgt. Minster, who'd been dealing with Paul Hughes, moved toward the sound of erupting gunfire. Cox then spotted Hughes' German shepherd mix, took < and killed the pet with one bullet. "A d ran out snarling, ran at me," Cox later

M,* *,**,*;* * , ! >

deputies did not have t and did not announce lendez and Garcia, who I for any crime and did not the description of the big, fficers sought, d the shack door with his led gmm semiautomatic lendez, who had on the rerline rifle-style BB gun shooting rats, sat up and un to the floor. Conley ullet ripped into Mendez's assed through it and leg proof, his attorneys * was reaching down to sn the floor when shot, know it was them," Menleriff's Homicide Sgt. Robdidn't say 'police'! They e'! They didn't say 'drop .ey said nothing, sir." ;derson fired at will, pep>le with 14 more bullets, uckthe seven-monthsa in the right upper back er collarbone. Mendez jured, hit multiple times arm, back and side; blood wounds. Weeks later, red right leg, whose key ;n sliced in half, had to be g videotape taken minlooting, as a paramedic the bleeding, police can 1 pressuring Mendez to i the BB gun at Conley. le people around him, n't let me die. sir!" then oward

Lancaster COPS HIT deputies on edge leading up to the shooting, the shooting itself and Baca's internal findings that the shooting was "in policy." Critics suggest the Mendez case is further proof that Sheriff Lee Baca, who has come under withering attack for repeatedly failing to prevent his deputies from abusing and harassing jail inmates, is losing control of a department some see as a cowboy-style organization rather than a modern law enforcement agency. Prominent civil rights attorney Samuel Paz, who has won many police-brutality lawsuits, says Baca's deputies "think they don't have to worry about being investigated because the top guys [Baca and his command staff] tell them they have free
Angel Mendez's plywood shack

the Angel Mendez tragedy. Tom Parker, former head of the FBI's Los Angeles office, who read an internal affairs report by Baca's department and a report by the Los Angeles County District Attorney, questions almost every aspect of the Mendez shooting, calling it "a mess from the get-go." Baca's report, he says, was "kind of a whitewash... which is very typical of the Sheriff's Department" in 2O1O and 2011. Baca spokesman Steve Whitmore says talk of deputies running amok is "absolutely not true" and defends Baca's internal investigation as thorough. "Where's the cover-up?" a defiant Whitmore asks. Michael Gennaco, chief attorney

.tucked behindaforlorn tree and piles of debris

"We thought it was a very straightforward case," Alarcon says. "The statements [by the deputies] were very consistent. So there were no red flags." But Gerald Ryckman, a partner on the case with David Drexler, Mendez's attorney, says neither the district attorney nor Baca's internal affairs team conducted a thorough bullet-trajectory investigation to test Mendez's contention that Conley shot his arm as he reached down to place the BB gun on the floor. "No one did the science," he says. "That speaks volumes about what was really going on here." Garcia and Mendez declined to discuss their harrowing experience. But Ryckman says, "They shoot Mr. Mendez and what happens? They start a massive cover-up machine. It's shocking." One recent day, a petite woman with missing teeth and darkly tanned skin is holding a yard sale in front of Paula Hughes' home on l8th Street West in Lancaster. Hughes is out of town in Las Vegas, but the woman, who doesn't give her name, is watching Hughes' home for her in this working-class high desert neighborhood. She remembers hearing about the shooting of Angel Mendez and Jennifer Garcia in the shack in the backyard but doesn't want to say much more than that other than to describe L.A. County Sheriff's deputies in Lancaster as "kind of aggressive." Says the woman, "They come off as if everyone's a punk." Across the street, Bridget Coss, an affable, smiling blonde who lives in a well-maintained ranch house with her husband, clearly remembers Oct. i, 2010 "The coj)S had the street blocked off," she says, "so I couldn't get in with my groceries. I wasn't happy about that." Until the Mendez incident, Coss says, the street was quiet and she had no idea that Mendez and Garcia lived in desperate conditions behind ^^ Hughes'

aidez 1 that he did not point his ey that he was moving lonley told Baca's Internal investigators he saw a rifle :him and opened fire. : was going to kill me," eriff's IAB Sgt. Patrick Kim, he got the jump on me . So I thought, 'Here's my .ncident happened too far ngeles urban core to earn w sentences in the media Sheriff's Department webly was among the few that 3ort that a federal lawsuit by Mendez against L.A. f and Pederson, alleging e force and that Mendez's rights had been violated. iO-jury trial before U.S. Dischael Fitzgerald wrapped n downtown Los Angeles, : is expected anytime.

ANGEL MENDEZ MADE 1 CRAWL FR8M THE SHACK CRSSfiUT ' I

Paz cites a 2O12 report by the Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence produced by such heavyweight civic leaders as Rev. Cecil Murray, Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell and former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos R. Moreno, which found serious problems. Peter Eliasberg, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California, says the Mendez-Garcia shooting is "definitely" cause for alarm. Under Baca, nearly all deputies must first serve in L.A. County's troubled jails, which Eliasberg says teaches vouna deputies a "force-first at the county's Office of Independent Review, who acts as a Sheriff's watchdog, says there were no signs of a cover-up and no red flags went up for him. He "concurred" that the shooting was not out of policy. If something comes up as a result of the Mendez lawsuit, Gennaco says, "I may want to re-examine." Deputy DA Rosa Alarcon, of the District Attorney's Justice System Integrity Division, tells the Weekly she's comfortable with Conley's explanation that Mendez pointed his rifle-like BB gun at him and the deputy squeezed off 10 gunshots in

"How was the officer supposed to know [Mendez] had a BB gun?" Coss asks. "I think they were just doing their jobs." The Antelope Valley has proved to be an unusually thorny problem for Sheriff's deputies just doing their jobs. On March 27, an L.A. County jury found that another of Baca's deputies, Scott Sorrow, used excessive force. Sorrow shot 15-year-old William Fetters in the back in 2009 after ordering Fetters to drop a toy gun on the ground in Palmdale. The jury awarded the teenager $1.1 million. The year Mendez was gunned down, Special Counsel Merrick Bobb, a countypaid watchdog over the Sheriff's Department, found that deputies engaged in "overzealous use" of "obstruction" charges to justify arresting black people in Lancaster. While African Americans make up 19 percent of Lancaster's population, 64 percent of those accused of obstruction were black. Bobb wrote of