[url]http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-000071541sep04.story[/url]

Shootout: They refute 'friendly fire' rumors, say a review of trajectory shows that the bullet came from the second floor of the barricaded Stevenson Ranch house.

 
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Thousands Mourn Slain Los Angeles Deputy
Sep 4, 2001
 

     
By KRISTINA SAUERWEIN and MARTHA GROVES, TIMES STAFF WRITERS


Preliminary autopsy and ballistics findings confirm that a Santa Clarita Valley gunman who held officers at bay Friday fired the shot that killed a deputy, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said Monday.

The angle of the shot, analysis of the bullet that hit Deputy Hagop "Jake" Kuredjian and statements by suspected gunman James Allen Beck all indicate that Beck was responsible for the death, sheriff's officials said, seeking to dismiss speculation that Kuredjian was hit by "friendly fire."

Also on Monday, sheriff's and fire officials continued to investigate the blaze that destroyed Beck's home after the shootout, which began when officers tried to serve a search warrant. The "likelihood" was that the fire was started by hot tear gas canisters fired by deputies through the window of the bedroom from which Beck was shooting, said Lt. Raymond Peavy of the Sheriff's Homicide Division. Investigators believe the fire started on a bed, Peavy said. Officials had said they thought that Beck might have started the blaze.

The announcement by investigators was prompted by an Associated Press story quoting Sheriff's Sgt. Paul Patterson casting doubt on the theory that Beck shot Kuredjian. "It upset the department," Lt. Carl Deeley said. "We're trying to deal with this tragedy. We're already on the edge of endurance."

Patterson, reached by phone Monday, declined to comment.

A sheriff's investigation found that the bullet that struck Kuredjian in the head traveled in a "steep downward arc" from the second floor of Beck's home, Deeley said. The trajectory of the bullet eliminates the possibility that another law enforcement officer shot Kuredjian in the gun battle in which authorities fired more than 150 rounds, ending when Beck's home caught fire and burned to the ground, Deeley said.

"Without a doubt, it was Beck who shot him," Deeley said.

Sheriff's officials said the department based its investigation on interviews, expert analysis and an autopsy report.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office confirmed Monday that Kuredjian died from a mortal head wound but said the official autopsy report would not be made public for at least several days.

Kuredjian, a popular motorcycle deputy, responded within minutes to the department's call Friday for help after Beck opened fire in the affluent Stevenson Ranch neighborhood.

Kuredjian took cover behind a Ford Explorer near Beck's home, the investigators said. During this time, Beck moved from the first to the second floor of his home, a location that would match the angle cited in the autopsy report, officials said.

"No other officers were at that high of a level," said Peavy.

continued

About the time Kuredjian was shot, authorities also reported hearing a boom louder than any of the previous rounds of gunfire and seeing a puff of smoke coming from the second-floor window, concluding that the shot and subsequent rounds came from one of Beck's high-powered rifles, Peavy said. Investigators found several weapons at Beck's home. However, they have not identified one was used to kill Kuredjian.

The slain deputy was wearing a motorcycle helmet. Sheriff's investigators theorized that Beck used a sight to target the helmet, firing a round that fragmented once it hit the helmet's visor. A fragment of that bullet penetrated the visor and the main body of the fiberglass helmet before entering the deputy's head near the right temple. It passed through his skull and brain and then lodged in his left cheek, Peavy said.

The bullet fragment was removed during the autopsy. Sheriff's Department weapons experts who examined the fragment said it "was consistent with being fired from a high-powered rifle," according to Peavy.

Gunman: 'I'm Sorry I Hurt the Deputy'

During telephone negotiations between Beck and law enforcement officials, Beck apologized for shooting the deputy and said he did not want to go to jail, officials said. According to Peavy, Beck responded: "I'm not going to give up. I'm sorry I hurt the deputy. . . . But I'm not going to go back to prison for the rest of my life. If you come in, you'll pay the price."

After Kuredjian was shot, Beck peppered the area with gunfire, making it impossible for other officers to pull the deputy to safety, Peavy said. It took five to 10 minutes, he said, before they could drag Kuredjian out of the line of fire and hustle to emergency crews.

Kuredjian's two brothers and his girlfriend appeared at a new conference at the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff Station to accept a check for $8,177.31 from neighborhood children who raised money to help them.

With dark sunglasses and slumped postures, brothers Garo and Raffi Kuredjian and girlfriend Theresa Richardson held hands during the presentation and hugged the children and their parents. They were surrounded by the dozens of red roses, white daisies, yellow sunflowers and peach carnations that community well-wishers placed along the entrance to the station.

continued

The family had planned to comment. However, sheriff's officials said they had just toured the site where the deputy died and were too distraught.

Raffi Kuredjian gave the boy who started the fund-raiser a black-and-white toy sheriff's car.

Austin Losorelli, 11, launched the collection Saturday. His father is a Los Angeles police officer. Austin said the idea came to him while he and his classmates at Stevenson Ranch Elementary School huddled in terror during a campus lock-down during Friday's shootout.

11-Year-Old Boy Started Fund for Slain Deputy

"If my dad didn't come home, it wouldn't be good for me," Austin said. "It would be sad."

On Friday night, while watching the siege on the news, Austin asked his mother if they could do something to honor the slain deputy. By Saturday morning, they set up a table at a busy intersection with green and yellow balloons and handwritten signs that read, "Please contribute for Deputy Jake K."

Drivers honked horns in support and handed dollar bills at the stoplight. The local Subway sandwich shop donated lunches.

"I think this shows what a close community we are," said Austin's mother, Phyllis Losorelli. "His death is like losing a family member."

Several hundred people attended a service Monday night at Old North Church at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.

"Everybody's crying. He's the nicest guy in the world," said Kuredjian's cousin, George Boyajyan of Burbank.

Gathered outside the church were about 15 members of the Iron Warriors, a law enforcement motorcycle club for which Kuredjian served as vice president of the Los Angeles chapter.

"He's the type who always looked on the good side of things. He would not even engage in conversation that was negative," said George Hawes, chapter president and a retired LAPD detective. "Everybody seemed to gather around Jake."

Sgt. Bob Norlemann of the Sheriff's Department, who also belongs to the motorcycle club, said: "We're going to miss him like crazy.

"All we can do is look and know that when we're out there riding . . . he's looking over our shoulders and keeping us safe."

*

Times staff writer Caitlin Liu contributed to this story.


[i][b]"If you're not part of the Solution,
you're part of the problem"[/i][[/b]

sgb

When the investigation is conducted by the same agencies that were involved in an incident like this, one should remain skeptical of their findings.

So what's the point of the bold topic line SGB?  He killed the cop so that makes everything that LE did ok?

When LE has access to armored vehicles, mounted belt-fed machine guns, and starts using military tactics i.e. suppressive fire into buildings, are they still Law Enforcement or are they a domestic military force that can be unleashed when their masters decide to declare war on citizens?

This is a sad event for our country. Even if the atf/pd was completely legit, their past has thrown enough doubt to cloud their actions. I can assure you that we as a people will never know all the truth about this incident.

The worst part of all is we are having this debate. That the feds have screwed up so many times that we can't trust them at all. Even if they may be justified. My only hope is that maybe the sheeple will open their eyes and reign in the atf/fbi/rambo cops one day before anyone else has to die.

mike

HMM, interesting. I take it they have video of the impact and know what position his body was in at that moment, otherwise knowing the wound path proves nothing about where the shot originated, only where it originated [i]in relation to his body[/i]. If you cannot prove where his body was a the moment of impact, the other data is useless.


Given the accuracy of the other statements we have been given about this, I view the statement about this somewhat doubtfully. Lubbock SWAT charged an innocent man with murder when they killed one of their own until the overwhelming evidence forced them to recant.



Anyone else's BS meter go off the scale when when they saw this? I own many, many "high powered rifles" and have fired tens of thousands of rounds, and have yet to see one time where they produced a "puff of smoke" that would be noticeable from a distance, or even close by. That's why they call it [i]smokeless[/i] powder.

Of course, I guess he could have had a high-power assault muzzleloader using black powder [rolleyes]



It would be interesting to hear what proceeded this comment. Did he come right out and say this, or was he responding to someone saying "You shot a deputy"? Without knowing the conversation that preceded this I cannot take it as an admission of guilt.  He may have fired some blind shots, been told that someone was hurt, and figured it was his shots when it may not have been.

Do they have it all on tape, or are we taking their word that he said that?


2 things to never trust at face value:

Anything said by the BATF

Anything said by a LE agency after they screw up, or may have screwed up, once the damage control starts.

[b][red]WARNING - PHOTO OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE[/b][/red]

12 ga contact wound, attempted suicide......
Gunshot wound ballistics is to my knowledge an inexact science.

[url]http://wsphotofews.excite.com/033/7b/6S/c6/zV48531.jpg[/url]

[i][b]"If you're not part of the Solution,
you're part of the problem"[/i][/b]

 fixed da link

No, not entirley smokeless, but damm near. You had to stare at the muzzle to notice anything was there. You just described flash, not smoke.

I seriously doubt that he had a rifle that produced a "puff of smoke" so blatant that the same guys that were under fire and scrambling to act could notice? The same guys who couldn't tell what house he was in were good enough to notice the tiny "puff of smoke" that a centerfire rifle generates from the distances they were at? If so, why did they keep pumping rounds into the wrong homes?

It sounds good to the gun-ignorant public, but thats about it. Of course, thats all it has to do......

Glad to see ya coming to the light.


[i][b]"If you're not part of the Solution,
you're part of the problem"[/i][/b]

sgb

Yes, and some believe that because he was a LEO he was more worthy of some rights, or his life was more valuable. And some of us see his life as being no more or less valuable than anyone else just because he wore a badge. Some seem to forget that two lives were lost that day both equally as sacred.

Did I accuse him of that? How did that come into play here. I never said he was heavy handed, or even a bad guy.

As folks always do after someone dies. Once again, why bring this up?
?, or maybe they just felt bad about it. Once again, what does it matter?

Dude, you must be suffering from sleep depervation or something, cause that rambling paragraph made no sense and had no connection to what you are replying to. All I said was two equally sacred lives were lost (human life is sacred, at least to me, and not to be taken without just cause) and that not everyone thinks that the moment someone straps on a badge they suddenly become worth more than the rest of us.(even though the law itself is written that way in many cases) Musta hit a nerve I reckon.

Wanna know the differnce? Wanna know why folks reacted like that?

Beck wasn't out to strip each and every one of us (except you, they will need LEO support) of thier freedom. Thats why there was a differnt reaction. I never felt beck was a threat to me, but BATF agents are. I never knew Becks history, but I know the track record of the BATF.

Law abiding gun enthusiests like myself never feared Beck, but we fear some BATF agent running in and ruining our life if we make a minor technical violation. Or setting us up to make that violation.

Thats why that reaction.

[>(]


[i][b]"If you're not part of TreetopFlyer's Solution, you must be a liberal"[/i][/b]

sgb[}:D]

[img]http://www.duhspot.com/users/smiley/s/otn/shocked/spectator4.gif[/img] Not a chance in hell (without proof)[+]:D]

[i][b]"If you're not part of the Solution,
you're part of the problem"[/i][/b]

sgb

I take it your are certain it was stolen eh? Where is your proof of that? Could have been gotten legally, then sold to him illegaly, but not stolen?

Not the same, by a long shot. Burgalers do it with no authority, and we have recourse and can resist. The BATF (yes, they are a tax agency and the B is part of the title, despite thier posturing to make them seem like the other 3 letter agencies) does it with the authority of government, the power to imprison you, and the authority to use dealy force if you resist.

On is just a criminal, one does criminal acts with government authority. One just takes things, the other seeks to restrict your acces to them and take them. One does so to take stuff to make money, one has much more evil intent.

No, just all BATF agents. Notice I was replying to the question of why people seemed joyful at the news that a [i]BATF[/i] agent was killed, not anyone else.
Yep. I never said he was right however
Yep, several. I was never impressed.

A good friend of mine got to meet several also. He was arrested, thrown in jail, had all his possessions seized, lost custody of his kid as he was under federal indictment, and lost his job. They smeared him as much as they could in the media, made false statements on affidavits and warrants, and pretty much ruined his life. The BATF came into possession of documents that hurt their case and hid them.

When it hit court, the judge, a 30 year veteran of the bench, said "This is the worst case I have seen the government bring in as long as I can remember" and dismissed the case.

Thier basis for the whole thing? A call from an estranged wife who later admitted to lying. Their case, that he was in possession of stolen government property, including explosives, was completely baseless. Every item he had was 100% legal and all had been sold by the government. When the BATF learned this, they just kept quiet about it and pushed ahead with the charges.

Wanna know more? The April 2000 issue of Soldier of Fortune has a detailed account of the whole thing starting on page 40.

So yes, I and those I care about have some experience with them

Yes. Life is still valuable. One who is taking the life of someone in most cases must fear [i]for his own life[/i] in order to do so for that same reason. That is why in most states you cannot kill over property crimes.

Killing in self defense is justified to protect a life, pretty simple. Otherwise in most cases it is not.