Slain Boy’s Kin: Police Warning Not in Spanish

SANTA ANA —  The Huntington Beach police officer who shot and killed a 17-year-old during a late-night drug raid warned the Mexican national in both English and Spanish before opening fire, police said Monday.

Disputing the account given by the slain teen’s relatives, police spokesman Lt. Dan Johnson said the veteran officer involved in last week’s shooting is an “extremely fluent” Spanish speaker who cautioned the teen to remain still in both languages.

However, the family of the boy insisted that officers shouted only in English as they used a battering ram to enter the home in the middle of the night. “They didn’t use Spanish, none at all,” one cousin said Monday.

Ulises Zambrano, who spoke little English, was shot moments after a team of narcotics officers burst through the front door of a home in the 1200 block of West McFadden Avenue.

Police have said Zambrano, who had been sleeping on the living room carpet, made a suspicious movement, as if grabbing for a weapon. No weapon was found in the home, said Lt. Robert Helton of the Santa Ana Police Department.

Officers seized 2 pounds of ephredine, a chemical used to manufacture methamphetamine, Helton said.

The officer who pulled the trigger has not been identified.

A 15-year-old cousin who was at the home during the raid said Zambrano moved only because he panicked and could not understand the commands of the officers who barged into the home just after 2 a.m. Friday. Another cousin, Bertha Esquivel, also said Monday that the police spoke only English.

Zambrano “was sleeping. He just woke up and didn’t know what was happening and he couldn’t understand the police,” said Esquivel, who described Zambrano as a recently arrived illegal immigrant. “My brother was there in the living room and he said they didn’t speak Spanish.”

Esquivel said her mother arrived home from work shortly after the shooting and could not find an officer on scene to answer her questions. “She doesn’t speak any English and she tried to talk to them, but none of them spoke Spanish. They just told her to shut up.”

The family has also contend that Zambrano died at the scene because police failed to get him prompt medical attention, an account that police have vigorously denied. “Help arrived within minutes,” Johnson said.

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Zambrano, who died from a single gunshot to the chest, was the second 17-year-old to be gunned down by a police officer in this city within a month. Joseph Pulido was shot Dec. 21 in the back of his right shoulder as he fled a Santa Ana police officer. Department sources say the officer told investigators that Pulido aimed a gun at him, but the boy’s family insists he was unarmed.

Both shootings are being investigated by the district attorney’s office, a routine procedure for officer-involved shootings. The investigations typically take as long as 100 days.

The officer who shot Zambrano will likely return to duty today, Johnson said. He described the officer only as a veteran of more than five years who grew up in a household where Spanish was spoken. The Huntington Beach police trauma support team--a peer counseling program for officers--has already met with the officer.

Zambrano had been in California less than a year and, according to a pay stub at his home, worked as a janitor at an Irvine office building while living with his aunt.

State agents initially reported that none of the nine other people in the home were arrested following the raid, but a Cypress police spokesman said Monday that one male was taken into custody. The male’s name and the charges he may face were not available Monday, Cypress Police Lt. John Schaefer said.

An attorney for Zambrano’s family confirmed that arrest Monday but declined to identify the family member.

Robert Berke, a Santa Monica attorney, also said the family remains gripped with grief and shock as they prepare to ship the teen’s body home to his parents in the Mexican state of Michoacan. A private family memorial will be held locally in the next few days, Berke said.

Berke said the family wants to see an in-depth investigation of the officer’s actions.

“They want to make sure people are held accountable,” Berke said. “Shooting a teenager to death is a serious matter. Shooting an unarmed boy is a serious matter. They want to see the investigation move forward.”

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The confrontation that took the life of Zambrano was set in motion by a drug investigation that began two months ago. Police from Huntington Beach, Cypress and Buena Park worked with the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement to track a methamphetamine operation. The trail led to three homes in two counties, investigators said.

Police and state agents raided a 4-acre ranch in Fontana about 9:45 p.m. Friday and found a “sophisticated lab” and store of chemicals tucked into a horse shed, said Fred Martino, supervising agent of the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement in Riverside.

One arrest was made at the Fontana ranch, which was “putting out hundreds of thousands of dollars of methamphetamine a week,” Martino said.

Investigators said information obtained during that raid led them to two homes in Santa Ana, including the house on West McFadden Avenue. They obtained a late-night search warrant and converged on the homes, police said.

There were no seizures or arrests at the second house, which is in the 1600 block of South Van Ness Avenue.

*CLAIM FILED

The family of slain teen Joseph Pulido is seeking $10 million from Santa Ana. B4