1977 SPECIAL REPORT: "LAPD SHOOTINGS"
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 14—The shooting of an unarmed man by a police sergeant 10 days ago has prompted new allega-tions that some members of the Los An-geles Police Department are “trigger happy,” at a time when the department’s controversial chief, Edward M. Davis, is preparing to run for Governor.
Relatives of the dead man, Ronald Burkholder, a 35‐year‐old biochemist, have hired a private detective to investi-gate the shooting. The American Civil Liberties Union here has protested the death.
The police department says it is investi-gating the shooting as a matter of rou-tine, but it refuses to comment on the investigaion. In an unusual step, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office an-nounced Friday that it would conduct an independent investigation.
. According to the department’s Initial reports, the police sergeant said that Mr. Burkholder, wearing no clothes, was climbing a street‐sign pole before dawn on, Aug. 4. The officer asserted that Mr. Burkholder came down from the pole, grabbed his police nightstick away from him twice, “lunged” at him and “assumed martial arts stance.” Mr. Burkholder was shot six times.
City Council Inquiry
His friends acknowledged that Mr. Burkholder often used illicit drugs, but they maintained that he was not a violent person. Mr. Burkholder, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, was employed by the Veterans Administration here to develop electronic devices for medical use. Coworkers described him as a gifted engineer and a specialist in laser re-search.
The shooting was the latest in a series. Last spring, In response to complaints from a citizens’ group called the Coalition Against Public Abuse, a city council com-mittee conducted an inquiry into the shootings but took no action.
At that time, the department said that in 1976, 72 officers were involved in shootings that resulted in 30 deaths and 45 injuries.
So far this year, 36 deaths have resulted from “police‐involved” shootings, the de-partment said in response to an inquiry last week.
Allegations Denied
Chief Davis has denied allegations that city policemen were too inclined to use firearms. He has said that the 7,000 mem-bers of the department must follow regu-lations that forbid indiscriminate firing. The use of guns is permitted in self‐de-fense and, under some circumstances, when a suspect is fleeing.
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An aide to Mr. Davis said that the po-lice chief would discuss the latest shoot-ing with The New York Times only if The Times agreed to use direct quotations and not paraphrase any of his remarks. The Times refused on the ground that it does not allow public officials or other news sources to set ground rules regard-ing the way it reports news.
Although the recent shooting is not ex‐. pected to derail Mr. Davis’s hopes of chal-lenging Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. in next year’s gubernatorial race, it is ex-pected that liberals will make it an issue in that campaign.
Mr. Davis prickles in response to criti-cism. A local television station broadcast list spring a series of interviews with a masked man who said he was a mem-ber of the department and asserted that some Los Angeles policemen liked to’ be involved in shootings because they found them exciting.
Conservative Support
‘ Mr. Davis responded with a blistering attack on the station, accusing it of “yel-low electronic journalism.’ He also accused the policeman of having leftist political tendencies.
Although Mr. Davis has not announced his candidacy for the Republican guber-natorial nomination, he has made it clear that he plans to do so. He is gathering support and pledges of financial aid from the same conservative elements that sup-ported former Governor Ronald Reagan and former Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty.
H.L. Richardson, a state senator, has initiated a campaign to raise more than $600,000 for Mr. Davis, largely through a .mailing to gun owners. Mr. Davis has firmly opposed gun control legislation.
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