Crime Beat by Michael Connelly

evidence.
    The current case arose from a shooting on Feb. 12, 1990, in which nine members of the police Special Investigations Section opened fire on four suspects who had just left a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland after a holdup. All four men were hit by police shots and only one survived.
    The families of the dead men and the survivor, who was later imprisoned for robbery, filed suit against the officers, Bradley, Gates and the Police Commission alleging that the robbers’ civil rights were violated because the police opened fire without provocation. The lawsuit also alleges that the SIS is a “death squad” that has been created and fostered by an environment of lax management, brutality and racism in the department.
    More than a year later, the Christopher Commission, formed by Bradley after the outcry that accompanied the Rodney G. King beating, delivered a report highly critical of management of the department and concluded that the police force had problems with excessive force, racism and a “code of silence” among its officers.
    Yagman said in a recent interview that many of the report’s conclusions mirror the allegations in the lawsuit spawned by the McDonald’s shooting.
    He unsuccessfully sought to have Warren Christopher, who chaired the commission, testify as a witness. However, U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts has allowed Yagman to use the commission’s report to question witnesses such as Bradley, Gates and police commissioners.
    Letts is expected to rule later whether the report will be accepted as evidence and whether jurors will be able to refer to it during deliberations.
    Regardless of the ruling, the report and its conclusions are already a large part of the trial record. So much so that at one point during Bradley’s testimony, Letts interrupted and cautioned the jury that they were not deciding a case on the incident that prompted the report.
    “Don’t get confused,” Letts said. “Rodney King is not here.”
    Outside of court, Yagman has told reporters that his questioning of witnesses has covered “every single chapter” of the report.
    But how important the Christopher Commission report will be to the case and others that follow cannot be determined until verdicts are returned.
    Jurors in the McDonald’s case have heard conflicting testimony over the report. Bradley said he agreed with the report’s conclusions, while Gates testified that he believes many of them are untrue or exaggerated.
    And even in testifying that he accepted the report, Bradley sought to repair any damage to the defense by stressing that the report targets only a small portion of the force. He said that, overall, the city has the finest big-city police department in the country.
    But Yagman and other attorneys said the commission report will automatically lend a strong degree of validation to claims made in lawsuits of police abuse.
    “This is not a wild-eyed civil rights lawyer saying this, it is a blue-ribbon panel appointed to fairly evaluate the LAPD,” attorney Benjamin Schonbrun said. He plans to introduce the report as evidence in two upcoming trials against the Los Angeles police.
    “I’ve been saying these same things for years,” Yagman said of the report’s conclusions. “Everybody now believes it.”
    Other attorneys specializing in police misconduct litigation said the effect that the report will have on how they prepare lawsuits against the Los Angeles police will be significant, and possibly expensive as damages are assessed.
    “By all means, it is terribly important,” said Hugh R. Manes, a civil rights lawyer in Los Angeles for more than 35 years. “I think it is a very important tool against the LAPD. It is based upon their own files and records going back 10 years and thus shows a pattern of misconduct.”
    Manes said the report’s broad coverage of the department’s problems will mean that at least portions of the report will be relevant, and admissible, in almost all