D.A. Clears Officers in Fatal Claremont Shooting

Two Claremont police officers involved in the controversial shooting of a young black motorist are not “criminally culpable” and will not be prosecuted, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has concluded.

Irvin Landrum Jr., 18, was shot to death as he stood outside his car during a traffic stop after midnight on Jan. 11. The incident triggered a federal investigation and weekly protests by Landrum’s family and others, who criticized police treatment of minorities in the predominantly white community.

Much of the controversy centered on apparent inconsistencies between one of the officer’s statements and the findings by sheriff’s detectives looking into the shooting. Officer Hany Hanna said Landrum pointed a gun at him and--while threatening, “I’m gonna kill you, I’m gonna kill you”--fired at the officers. But sheriff’s officials found that Landrum’s gun had not been fired and bore no fingerprints.

The other officer, Kent Jacks, declined to speak to investigators.

The district attorney’s review of the Sheriff’s Department probe did not resolve how Hanna could have seen the flash of Landrum’s gun, but noted that the observation was made “in a fraction of a second in a highly stress-producing environment.”

As for the lack of fingerprints, it referred to a recent study by U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms experts reporting that only a small percentage of weapons bear fingerprints that are usable to forensic experts.

The D.A.’s findings, released Tuesday, ultimately concluded that “Mr. Landrum was shot while drawing an illegally concealed weapon in a threatening manner toward two police officers who were performing their lawful duty.” After the shooting, the gun was found on the ground by Landrum’s feet.

Though the FBI investigation into the officers’ conduct is ongoing, Police Chief Robert Moody said he hopes that the D.A.’s conclusion will have a calming influence.

He said that morale has not been low, however, and that residents have expressed support for the department. He said he expects the same conclusion from the U.S. attorney general’s office, which will review the FBI’s investigation.

But Landrum’s family, which is suing the city alleging wrongful death and plans to continue the rallies, criticized the district attorney for not conducting an independent investigation and simply relying on the sheriff’s report, which is routine.

“There was no effort to find what really happened,” said Landrum’s uncle, Obee Landrum. “They were trying to justify what these officers did.”

He questioned a part of the report about an audiotape of the incident. Officer Jacks carried a tape recorder that morning, and some of the sheriff’s investigators who later listened to the tape said they could hear Landrum say, “You’re both dead,” according to the sheriff’s report.

But the D.A. reports: “An investigating officer and a tape amplification expert from the JPL Laboratory believe they can hear Mr. Landrum state on the tape something like ‘I’m gonna kill you two.’ We are unable to hear this statement on the filtered tape.”’

Landrum said the discrepancy shows the sheriff’s investigators “weren’t being honest.”

He and the family’s attorney, Anthony Willoughby, contend that the issue of fingerprints on Landrum’s weapon has been skewed. They say there were no smudges or fingerprints--usable or not--on the gun, and thus he never held it. The ATF study referred only to usable fingerprints, experts said, and almost all weapons should have smudges of some sort.

But a sheriff’s fingerprint expert told The Times that it is not routine to note smudges as evidence, but only those fingerprints that are good enough to use in an investigation.