Former Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso is chairing a thirteen person commission on civil rights to look into the 2009 shooting of Luis Gutierrez.  Saturday marked the first public meeting of that commission where they took testimony from four witnesses to Gutierrez's mannerisms and activities of the day, the shooting itself, and the tactics of the officers.  In day one of testimony taken by the Yolo County Independent Civil Rights Commission a number of witnesses were called to testify.  Some of these were direct witnesses to facets of the events of the day that Luis Gutierrez was shot by three Yolo County Sheriff's Deputies working for the Yolo County Gang Task Force. 

One of the key witnesses, described in great detail what she had seen.  She provided far more detail than what was made available by the Yolo County District Attorney's Office in their report on the incident.  She described the incident in great detail and told the commission that she had not seen a weapon, and that Mr. Gutierrez was retreating as he was shot.

However, stealing the show was the description of a family that had nothing to do with this incident.  They described their treatment by the three Deputies in a previous incident that left their ten year old daughter shaken with post traumatic stress disorder, after deputies pulled a gun and held it to her head.

Ms. Vienna Monique Navarro, no relation to Luis Gutierrez Navarro, is one of the witnesses that the report included testimony from.  However, she was able to describe the incident in far more detail.

Ms. Navarro was driving very slowly on the bridge when she saw three men and Luis Gutierrez.  At first, she thought the men were playing around and simply running from one side of the street to the other.  However, then she saw them punching and swinging their arms.  She saw Mr. Gutierrez exchange punches with one of the officers.  She described Mr. Gutierrez's face as very red, but said there was no blood that she could see.

She was driving about 2 miles per hour very slow and Luis came within three feet of her vehicle and made eye contact with her.  He looked very scared, confused, and shocked. 

She said, "I didn't know they were officers until one of their jackets flew open and I saw the badge.  And even then I wasn't really sure, it didn't click in my head that they were police officers."

She described that he stopped and turned around.  "He was doing this backwards jog type move.  It kind of looked like he was turning to see where they were.  He turned around and I heard three gunshots as he was doing a jogging motion."

"I heard three or four or five shots, and I was looking in my rearview mirror and I saw him fall down on his side.  When I saw that I took off down to Kate Lane."

She would not find out that he had been killed until the next day when she looked up the story on the internet and saw the report.  She could not believe that he had been shot, since he did not have a gun.  It was only later on the internet that she learned that officers were saying that he had a knife.

She said the Chief of Police was the one who interviewed her. 

"One thing that I thought was pretty odd, was at one point he had asked me to stand up and demonstrate how Luis was running.  He said, so Luis was running like this with his hands and everything.  I said yes.  And he said, did you notice that I had this knife in my hands the whole time?  He had a pocket knife, a black one, that was in the palm of his hands.  He said, did you see this?  And I said no, I didn't.  He said, how do you know you didn't just miss the knife [the knife that he alleged was in Luis' hand]?"

She pointed out that the knife that the Police Chief held was closed.  In demonstration with the private investigator, it was clear that if there had been an open knife in Luis' hands, as the officers allege in their report, she would have seen it. 

Her description differs from the report in several key ways.

First, the report makes no mention of the punches that were exchanged by Gutierrez and the Deputies.  And yet she clearly saw punches exchanged between Gutierrez and the officers.

Second, she describes Gutierrez as jogging backwards and reports seeing no weapon in his hands.

Here is the way the report reads:

"Ms. Navarro had now passed the law enforcement vehicle heading in the opposite direction, so she continued to watch the incident out of her rear view mirror. She saw the guy the officers were chasing stop and turn around. She did not see anything in the person’s hands. The officers were about 10 feet away from the person. The person backed away from the officers, and Ms. Navarro heard four shots. Ms. Navarro then decided to leave the area. By this time, she was at the bottom of the hill. She did not see the officers’ firearms. She heard the officers yelling but could not tell what was being said. She thought the subject’s arms were swinging as he ran. She did not see him pull out a knife."

What was not clear from this is that Ms. Navarro was driving very slowly during this time.  She had a very clear view of Gutierrez as he was within three feet of her, looked right at him, and did not see a knife in his hands.  And yet seconds later he would allegedly have an open knife and would have allegedly lunged at the police according to the report.  The interviewing officer tried to convince her that he could have had a weapon and she may not have seen it, but he held a closed knife, an open knife with a four inch blade would have been visible to her.  She never reported seeing him lunge at officers, on the contrary, she described him as running backwards with his arms swinging as a jogger's arms would swing while jogging.

This was key testimony from one of the key eyewitnesses to the shooting that the police had used during their investigation.  Her testimony filled in some holes in the police report as it seems clear that she had a better view of the scene and incident than the official report implies.

A family testified to brutal tactics used by the same three men unit from the gang task force.  They testified that they were treated violently without just cause as they were detained by the Gang Task Force.

Santiago Ochoa and his wife and daughter described in detail an incident that occurred on April 5, 2009, less than a month before the Gutierrez shooting.  The same three Officer Johnson, Bautista, and Oviedo arrived at door looking for his son, Santiago Ochoa Jr was in there.  Permission was not given to the men to search the house.  They did it anyway.

The police showed up again on the 7th and asked them why they went into the house and took things from the house without permission.  He told the commission through his interpreter that the Officer told him, "We don't have a search warrant, but if you'd like we can get a search warrant so that we can destroy your house, if that's what you want."  

They came back again, and threatened his nephew with a pistol in hand.  They threatened him  and told him that if he didn't tell them where Junior was... But he said he could not say, because he didn't know.

Then Sgt. Johnson told him, "When this case is over, you're not going to be here because we're going to send you to Mexico."

Finally they came back on June 11 between 8:45 and 9:00 in the morning and they went into the house with a search warrant this time.  They knocked very hard, "Open up the f---ing door!"

His wife opened the door, "they grabbed her by the neck and threw her down on the floor with a pistol in [the Sheriff's Deputy] hand.  I came behind her, they did the same thing to me.  They tried to slam me on the floor, but I didn't want that.  So they threw me out the door."

Then Crystal, his then nine year old daughter came behind him, "they did the same thing to her, they pointed a gun at her head and they threw her out after us."

Mrs. Ochoa also testified.  "I said my daughter, my daughter, she came out like this and when she did, they put a pistol on her head and then threw her out as well along with me."

She asked the female officer, "Why do they do this to our daughter and she said, 'children kill as well.'  She began to vomit from the fright and she trembled.  I said why to our little girl, she's little?"  Crystal was nine years old and about 75 pounds at the time of the incident.  "In English they said, change the laws if you can."

The family described the officers intentionally destroying their property.  At one point responding to a question as to why they were tearing things apart by saying, "That's how it should be" and then asking for a hammer.

Chrystal then in English described in vivid detail what happened to her.

"I was eating and they started hitting the door and started saying bad words."  She said she went to go feed her turtle when her mother open the door and they grabbed her and threw her to the ground. 

"One of the polices came and they pointed a gun at my head and started taking me outside with the gun at my head."

She was asked by Justice Reynoso to describe how far the gun was from her head.  She was asked to show the commission with the use of her fingers; Crystal pointed to her temple and had her index finger right at her head. When asked again, if that is how close the gun was to her head she said, “Yes, it was right here at my head.”

She was asked what happened afterwards and told them they took her to the emergency room.  "They said I was like traumatized."

Her mother described Chrystal's ordeal in more detail which would seem to be post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Since then, I think she's ill because she's sleeping and she wakes up and then she slaps at us, it's like she's seeing something.  She says no, no, no.  She doesn't sleep well at night.  It's like she's traumatized, I don't know what.  We took her to a doctor at the clinic, and they said this girl is sick, take her to the emergency room.  She was taken to the hospital and the doctor said that she is traumatized."

She continued,

"She wouldn't stop vomiting and she was trembling like this.  She wouldn't sleep because she was frightened.  We sent her to another place with family members so this would get out of her head." 

Her father described that he took her to the Sheriff's Department on the day that this happened because she was still vomiting and he didn't know what to do and all they would say was they were sorry and she vomited twice in front of them at the Sheriff's Department.

They took her to the ER, and they kept her there for three hours and this cost $4000.

The problem is persisting even now months later.

"The school is complaining because they're saying that she's not doing well.  She's not well.  She had an interview with the school counselors, they said to me to take her to a counseling program.  But I say, how, I don't have the money.  That's why she hasn't been taken."

Some of the commissioners are now looking into ways to get her some treatment.

The commission also heard from the father of Luis Gutierrez, the private investigator, Frank Roman who has been investigating the incident for the commission and has found the witnesses.  He put together a time line of events on the day of the incident.  Mr. Gutierrez described seeing his son in the morgue, seeing the gun shot that entered the back of his neck and left through his head, and then describing the horror as they would not let him see his son at first and then dropped a $20,000 bill for funeral expenses.

For full disclosure, my wife, Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald is one of thirteen members of the commission, other commissioners in attendance included the Chair Justice Cruz Reynoso, Joan Branin, a lawyer, Bill Kopper a lawyer, Mathew Jacobs, a lawyer, Rev. Vernon Holmes, and Irma Diaz.  Testimony continues Sunday from 2 to 5 pm at the Community Room at Woodland Community College.

---David M. Greenwald

 

More Questions About Official Gutierrez Report as Weekend Testimony Wraps Up

Written by David Greenwald

Monday, 22 February 2010 08:50

The panel led by former state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso wrapped up its first weekend of testimony on Sunday, taking brief testimony from two witnesses and then listening to an impressive discussion by Private Investigator Frank Roman who went through the DA's report blow by blow and raised questions that need to be answered and showed problems and contradictions in other areas. Not everyone was appreciative of the panel's efforts however, as both Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig and Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto dismissed the panel as politically motivated and lacking credibility.  However, as far as we can tell, neither attended nor had any of their deputies attend the weekend's testimony.   The first witness was a man named Javier Cabrera.  He was driving on the overpass on Gum Ave over Highway 113 the day of the shooting when he was Gutierrez walking on the bridge towards the east.  He observed the dark colored Ford Taurus parked sideways, on the bridge at an angle.  The car was completely stopped. Mr. Cabrera observed Gutierrez looking "surprised and somewhat scared."  He told the panel he was walking normally and that he did not look like a gang member. Mr. Cabrera saw Gutierrez immediately before witness Diana Navarro  saw him.  Navarro testified on Saturday that she saw Mr. Gutierrez exchange punches with the officer, that she saw no knife and no weapons in his hands which she saw clearly, and that he was retreating in a jogging motion as he was shot by deputies. The second witness was Rosalia Redones who was an insurance broker who met the victim the day of the death.  At 12:29 the application came in, the victim signed everything.  He did everything normal in paying for coverage for 3 months in advance.  He spent about 15 to 20 minutes her. The victim was lucid, and the witness saw nothing strange.  The witness described the fact that two of her brothers had died from drugs and alcohol and she had witnessed them under the influence, but said that the victim  (Gutierrez) showed no signs of being on drugs.  The victim did not have sniffles, shaking, slurred speech, or any other indications of drug use.  She also mentioned he spoke broken English. The rest of the testimony on Sunday was delivered by the Private Investigator Frank Roman, who apparently began work on this case as soon as three weeks following the incident. Mr. Roman questioned multiple aspects of the official report. First, he described that the trajectory of one of the bullets that the police fired  which landed in a nearby mobile home in the daughter's bedroom of that resident.  The police made no effort to retrieve it.  They looked up in the ceiling where the bullet lodged and said that they would never find the bullet. Mr. Roman in his investigation went back and looked inside the home, was shown where the bullet hole was, took multiple photos, and then cut into the ceiling in three sections before finding the pristine hollow point bullet in the drywall.  He took it to the police for crime scene analysis.  It was not mentioned in the report which read: "An expended bullet was later recovered from a residence in a mobile home park northeast of the scene.  The location and trajectory of that bullet were consistent with the shooting scene."  That report did not note that the bullet was not recovered by the police. Overall, he noted that the police never identified which of the deputies in their report fired the fatal shot that killed Gutierrez, something that should have been easily determined through ballistic evidence. Mr. Roman then poked holes in Sgt. Dale Johnson's account of the incident. "Navarro looked at Sgt. Johnson, looked down toward Sgt. Johnson’s badge and gun, and immediately took off running eastbound on East Gum Avenue. Navarro immediately put his right hand in his right front pants pocket. Sgt. Johnson stated that he thought that Navarro might be reaching for narcotics. As Navarro was running, he kept his hand in his pocket. As he ran eastbound, Navarro crossed to the south side of East Gum Avenue. Sgt. Johnson had his gun in his hand as he chased after Navarro. Sgt. Johnson identified himself as a law enforcement officer about 15 times. Sgt. Johnson decided to physically grab Navarro, so he re-holstered his gun. When Sgt. Johnson got close enough to grab him, Navarro was able to duck away from Sgt. Johnson’s grasp, causing Sgt. Johnson to miss him. Navarro then pulled a knife out of his pocket and made a slashing motion at Sgt. Johnson. Sgt. Johnson evaded the assault by quickly moving back away from Navarro. Sgt. Johnson described his maneuver as “trying to make myself into a C or reverse C type of thing.” After he jumped back, he saw the knife, which was a folding type knife, not a buck knife." First, Mr. Roman questioned the fact that Sgt. Johnson would think that Navarro would reach into his pant pockets during a pursuit and try to reach for narcotics.  Mr. Roman is a former police officer and said his first thought would be that he was reaching for a weapon, not narcotics. Next, Mr. Roman ascertained that the pursuit took place within about a 100 foot space and he questioned whether an officer could yell that many times (15) while in pursuit.  He said he could only get it out about six times and it got really garbled at the end. Moreover, Oviedo described himself as yelling “S.O. and/or Sheriff’s Department. Stop,” five times.  Mr. Roman questioned that as well, asking first which it was and then wondering whether anyone would know what "S.O." meant, particularly an individual who spoke broken English. The deputies described Mr. Gutierrez as running with his hands in pant pockets.  Mr. Roman questioned whether one could run with hands in his pant pocket.  Moreover, one of the witnesses directly contradicts that statement, arguing that he ran in a jogging motions with his hands waving. But the biggest question had to do with the knife. Above, Sgt. Johnson describes him pulling the knife out of his pocket and making a slashing motion.  Likewise Deputy Oviedo described the following: "Navarro was removing and returning his hand to his pocket as he ran.  Deputy Oviedo saw Navarro reach into his right pocket and remove a knife. He could see the three-or four-inch blade.  Navarro lunged at Sgt. Johnson as if to stab him..." As Mr. Roman pointed out, which was it a slashing motion as Johnson described or a stabbing motion as Oviedo described.  He said they were two very distinct motions and demonstrated the difference. But moreover, his knife was a folding knife and neither officer described him opening the knife.  Mr. Roman spent time showing that he could not be running with an open knife in his pocket and also showed that he could not have opened in his pocket with just one hand.  That would seem to be a huge question. He further said, they will need expert testimony, but he questioned whether a person shot in the jugular with the exit wound in the head could throw the knife after being shot. He described eye witness account from Sheryl Perry from the DMV who renewed his driver's license.  She described him as speaking broken-English but polite.  They blew up the photograph taken at the DMV and his pupils did not look dilated and  he did not appear to be on drugs.  All witness accounts from that morning suggested that he was acting normal and that no one sensed anything that was wrong. He said they will need experts to discuss the impact of the quantity of drugs used on his behavior, but he questioned that someone could use that much meth and yet sit calmly in an office for 15 to 20 minutes. The final portion of his testimony focused on the witness Rudulfo Flores. Here was the official account: On June 1, 2009, Yolo Sheriff’s Office Deputy J. Lazaro contacted Flores at Woodland Memorial Hospital. At that time, Flores was in the custody of the Yolo County Sheriff. Flores told Lazaro the person who died was known as “Indian Gutierrez” because he was a good knife thrower. According to Flores, the deputy was lucky not to get killed because Gutierrez, who is a Sureño gang member, is a dangerous person and had said he would not let the cops take him. On June 2, Woodland Police Department Detective Ron Cordova reinterviewed Flores. Flores advised he knew Gutierrez (Navarro) as a Sureño because since he (Flores) associates with Sureños. Gutierrez always carried a knife and was good with it. Gutierrez’s nickname was “Indio” because he was good with a knife. Flores knew Gutierrez used controlled substances and was considered dangerous. Mr. Flores was important to the official account because he was the only witness that identified Gutierrez as a gang member.  Like us, Mr. Roman had serious questions about Mr. Flores' testimony.  The dangerous knife thrower who the police were lucky that he did not kill had 15 contacts contacts with the police, all were traffic stops.  There was no evidence of gang activity, no evidence of a criminal record, no conflicts or confrontations with the police, and no evidence he was even under the influence of narcotics. Mr. Roman looked at Mr. Flores' record and found that he had a long history of small crimes, mostly for possession of drugs including the most recent crime for a possession of heroin.  Shortly after the Gutierrez case, that possession of heroin charge was not filed by the District Attorney's office, a DA's office that files on almost every charge.  Plus a good amount of the record was sealed in this case and inaccessible.  This led him to wonder if Mr. Flores cut a deal in exchange for his account that identified Mr. Gutierrez as a gang member. While none of this testimony constitutes proof of anything, it does raise a lot of red flags and questions about the official.  The hope expressed by Mr. Roman was that the panel would follow up on some of these questions and bring forth experts.  It is likely that the deputies would not testify, but short of that, they hope to produce a report of the incident and present it  to officials in hopes that officials will follow up on their findings. Reaction from Reisig and Prieto along with Commentary Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig told the Sacramento Bee Sunday that the "panel was politically motivated and lacked credibility." He said in an e-mail: "It is clear that their process is driven by deep personal and political agendas.  The fact that basic rules of evidence are not being followed – such as ignoring rules against hearsay, allowing factually unsupported and rampant speculation and failing to even secure an oath under penalty of perjury – sheds light on the illegitimacy of the project." My response to that is really a so what if that charge is true, and I am not sure that it is true.  Most of the testimony from the eyewitnesses were in fact direct testimony about what they observed.  And furthermore, they  stated that they would say similar things if called before an actual judicial body, of which this is not.  Moreover, he completely dismisses potential valid questions that were raised both days about what happened.  We can go down the list starting with Ms. Navarro's testimony where she references a punch, which was never reported in the report, and she also says she never saw a knife.  We can go down the list of the questions that Roman raises about the knife, about the account of the officers, about the bullet that he retrieved, about the witnesses who spoke of Gutierrez's behavior, about the questionable account of Mr. Flores.  None of these statements alone are direct evidence that would be admissible in a court of law, but all are legitimate points that you cannot dismiss due to motivation.  There are quite simply many holes in Mr. Reisig's department's report that should be followed up on. Sheriff Ed Prieto had a similar reaction, but look at what else he says.  He told the Bee on Sunday: "It is clear that (the panel's) process is driven by deep personal and political agendas." However he also said, "He had not heard of the incident before, but that his office would initiate an investigation based on the [Ochoa] family's testimony." So on the one hand, the panel's process is questionable, but on the other hand, he thought enough of the testimony that he would follow up on it.  Seems like ther's a bit of a contradiction. The one thing that I really do not understand in this is what is the political agenda here?  Neither Prieto nor Reisig have opposition to their re-election campaigns in June, so what is the political agenda? To me, my agenda is to find out what really happened because I did not believe the official report that was released in November and Mr. Roman and the other witnesses gave me more questions about it rather than less. ---David M. Greenwald reporting