WITNESSES SAY OFFICER KILLED UNARMED SUSPECT

In the dramatic shooting incident that cemented the personal bond between
two rogue cops linked to an ongoing Los Angeles police corruption scandal,
one of the officers gunned down a suspect who never drew a gun,
eyewitnesses say.

The two civilian witnesses, who were not interviewed when detectives
briefly reopened the case earlier this year as part of a broader corruption
probe, deny that alleged drug dealer Jesse Vicencio pulled a gun on
Officers Rafael A. Perez and his then-partner David A. Mack.

Rather, the witnesses contend that Mack shot Vicencio without warning, as
the alleged drug dealer leaned into the undercover officers' car. Their
version of events, which they say they gave officers the night of the
shooting, was repeated to The Times in interviews that began earlier this
year.

LAPD investigators initially said they had reexamined the shooting earlier
this year and found nothing improper. But after queries from The Times on
Wednesday, Cmdr. David J. Kalish, the department spokesman, said the
reexamination was only cursory and investigators plan to take a closer look.

The department's official account of the shooting was that Mack fired in
self-defense to save his life and that of Perez as they were being menaced
by the gun-wielding Vicencio.

Chief Bernard C. Parks said at a news conference Wednesday that he has
formed an internal board of inquiry that will examine, among other issues,
the quality of the department's investigations into officer-involved
shootings. The integrity of those investigations has been called into
question as a result of allegations by Perez, who is cooperating with
investigators to receive a lighter sentence on cocaine theft convictions.

In the case of the Vicencio shooting, both witnesses have personal ties to
the dead man. Adam Rollins is Vicencio's cousin and Manuel Iwabucci is a
longtime family friend. Both have had past brushes with the law. And they
do not entirely agree on precisely what happened the night of Oct. 26,
1993. They do agree, however, that Vicencio never drew a weapon.

Under normal circumstances, statements from such witnesses weighed against
those of the police officers involved would have little influence. But the
circumstances in this incident are anything but routine, starting with the
officers involved. Perez is the jailed former officer at the center of the
ongoing corruption probe. He has already implicated himself and another
former partner in an unjustified shooting that left an unarmed man in a
wheelchair and falsely imprisoned, and has characterized a second shooting
in which a man was killed by fellow officers as unjustified. Both of the
shootings were ruled "in policy" at the time by department officials.

Shootings Discussed

Mack was sentenced earlier this month to 14 years in prison for robbing a
Bank of America branch of $722,000. In federal court papers filed in
connection with the case, his accomplice and mistress of seven years,
Errolyn Romero, said Mack had told her about several shootings he had been
involved in while an LAPD officer. In one of those shootings, Romero
questioned why he killed the suspect.

"Mr. Mack responded by stating that he did not want the person to testify
about the circumstances surrounding the shooting," said the court papers
filed by Romero's attorney, Edi M.O. Faal. "Mr. Mack told Ms. Romero that
killing is sometimes necessary because you 'don't want to leave witnesses
around.' "

Mack warned her to keep quiet in the days after the Nov. 6, 1997, bank
robbery, the court papers said. "The weak and those who talk too much get
eliminated," Mack allegedly told Romero. Court papers allege that while
Mack was in jail awaiting trial in the bank robbery, federal authorities
discovered that he was plotting to have Romero killed.

According to an internal LAPD review of the Vicencio shooting, Mack and
Perez were working undercover, attempting to buy drugs from street dealers
when they encountered the 29-year-old man about 9:15 p.m. in the 2100 block
of Cambridge Street. According to the police reports, Vicencio held a
chrome pistol at the side of his right leg as he walked up to the car.

As Vicencio approached Mack, who was driving, Perez told Mack that the
suspect was carrying a gun, the police report states. Mack, who was
accustomed to dealing with armed suspects during undercover assignments,
wasn't particularly alarmed at first, the report says. He told Vicencio
that he wanted to buy drugs. Vicencio asked what kind, and Perez told him
they wanted $20 worth of rock cocaine.

At this point, according to the report by LAPD investigators, what had been
proceeding as a routine drug transaction spun out of control:

"Vicencio looked at the money in his hand, then threw it onto Officer
Mack's lap and said, 'Nah, man. Are you Bloods or Crips?' "

Vicencio, who would test positive during an autopsy for PCP, then became
increasingly agitated, the report says. Realizing this, Mack carefully
eased his gun out from under his waistband, but left it concealed under his
shirt where Vicencio couldn't see the weapon, the investigators alleged.

As Perez tried to persuade Vicencio that he and Mack were not gang members,
Vicencio drew his weapon and pointed it back and forth at the two partners.
Mack at this point drew his gun from beneath his shirt, pointed it out the
window and fired four shots, the report states.

After the fourth shot, Mack looked up and saw that Vicencio was standing in
the middle of the road. Apparently unaffected by the gunshots, according to
investigators, Vicencio held onto his gun, and again raised it toward the
officers. Mack then pushed his car door open--apparently for use as a
shield--stuck his gun out the window and fired five rounds at Vicencio, the
report says.

Vicencio then turned to his left and ran, investigators say. But as he
fled, he extended his right arm, gun in hand, back toward Mack. Still
fearful that the fleeing suspect was about to shoot him, Mack fired four
more times, emptying his gun, according to LAPD investigators.

When the dust had settled, Mack had fired 13 rounds. There was no mention
in the shooting report that Vicencio, who officers said provoked the
shooting, had not fired his gun.

Although Perez has cast suspicion on at least a dozen officers, he has not
implicated his friend Mack in any wrongdoing. Though Perez partied with
Mack in Las Vegas two days after the bank robbery, he said he had no
inkling his former partner was living a life of crime.

In an interview with The Times, Perez insisted the Vicencio shooting was
completely within department policy.

"The only thing that I can say about that shooting is that as far as I'm
concerned, David Mack was a hero that night," Perez said. "David Mack saved
my life that night."

Mack's attorney, Donald M. Re, said his client insists that the Vicencio
shooting was within LAPD policy.

But eyewitnesses have maintained since immediately after the shooting that
they saw no weapon in Vicencio's hands.

Adam Rollins, who was 13 at the time of the shooting, said in an interview
with The Times that it didn't happen the way the police reports said it did.

For starters, Rollins said, Mack seemed to know his older cousin.

"He knew Jesse's name and everything," said Rollins, now 19. "He said,
'Hey, what's up?' "

Rollins said Mack asked Vicencio if he was carrying a gun, to which
Vicencio responded that he was.

Mack said he had one too, Rollins recalled.

At that point, Rollins said he looked away for a second and that when he
turned back toward Jesse, "that's when the guy [Mack] pulled out a gun. He
pulled the trigger, and I heard a loud shot."

After the shot, Rollins said Jesse spun from the car, with both hands
holding his belly.

"He said run--so I ran," Rollins recalled.

Rollins said Vicencio ran too.

"He just kept running and then I just kept hearing the shots," the young
man said.

After the shooting, Rollins was handcuffed, taken to the police station and
interrogated. He said he was confused and crying during much of the interview.

He said that while he admitted that Vicencio said he had a gun, he said he
never saw his cousin holding a weapon. In the interview with The Times,
Rollins said his cousin's response to Mack's query probably was a boast
made for protection against men he assumed were criminals. Rollins said he
can't imagine how he would have missed seeing a gun, as he saw both his
cousin's hands holding his belly as he ran from the car in the wake of the
shooting.

Iwabucci, 29, a longtime friend of the Vicencio family, agreed with Rollins
that Vicencio was unarmed. But his account of the shooting varied from
Rollins'. He recalled that both officers fired their guns, not just Mack.
And he thought that Vicencio approached the passenger's side of the car as
opposed to the driver's.

Those discrepancies aside, Iwabucci said the police shot an unarmed man.

"They told me he had a gun. I said that's impossible."