Police Slaying of Mentally Ill Man Assailed by Relatives

Last March, Ledy Hernandez moved her mentally ill younger brother out of a board-and-care home and into the Pasadena apartment she shares with their mother.

“I felt bad that we weren’t all living together,” the 23-year-old woman explained.

But her bid to keep the family intact and happy was shattered when two police officers, responding to a 911 call, smashed in the apartment door. Eddie Ecxaze Hernandez, 21, who was alone, attacked one policeman with a knife and was shot and killed by the officer’s partner, according to police reports.

The shooting prompted family members to question the Pasadena Police Department’s tactics. Police, they said, knew Eddie Hernandez was ill because they had picked him up twice for mandatory psychiatric exams. Ledy Hernandez said the officers should not have forced their way into the apartment, causing her brother to panic and attack.

“I think it’s unfair,” she said shortly after the Sept. 18 shooting. “It’s not like they were not aware of his condition. . . . I don’t understand how come they shot him dead. Why didn’t they try to wound him in the leg or the arm? . . . They broke into the house. They didn’t have to break in.”

But police officials insist that the officers’ tactics were sound and that deadly force was justified.

Pasadena police and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies are still investigating the incident. But Police Cmdr. Rick Emerson said, “Preliminarily, it appears the shooting was within policy.”

Emerson said the officers forced their way into the apartment because they had received a 911 call and feared that Eddie Hernandez was about to hurt someone inside.

“They were trying to communicate with him, and he was attempting to barricade himself inside,” the commander said.

According to reports, no one spoke during the 911 call, but the address of the apartment appeared automatically on police monitors. After officers broke through the door, Hernandez stabbed Officer Al Campbell, 25, twice in the chest, police said. Campbell was not injured because his bulletproof vest kept the knife from penetrating.

Campbell’s partner, Officer James Ballestero, 35, fired two shots. One struck Hernandez in the torso.

Ballestero had been fired from the department in 1987 after police officials concluded that he used excessive force during a violent confrontation with residents of another apartment complex.

During that skirmish, Michael Zinzun, chairman of the Los Angeles-based Coalition Against Police Abuse, was blinded permanently in one eye. In 1988, the city of Pasadena paid Zinzun and three other people hurt during the confrontation a total of $1.3 million to settle their federal lawsuit against the city.

Ballestero also sued the city, seeking reinstatement. Last December, a Superior Court judge ruled that although Ballestero was at the scene of the skirmish, there was insufficient evidence that he was the officer who hurt Zinzun or the others. The judge ordered Ballestero reinstated.

Emerson said Ballestero has performed his job well since his rehiring. The police commander said that, in the close-quarters struggle with Hernandez, Ballestero was not expected to merely wound the suspect.

“It would be great if police officers had the ability to just wing somebody, but it just doesn’t work that way,” Emerson said.

Ledy Hernandez said the family has been consulting with an attorney and is considering legal action against the city.

On Tuesday, family members received visitors at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale and, later in the day, planned to board a flight to El Salvador, where Eddie Hernandez will be buried. Before leaving, Ledy Hernandez returned briefly to the Pasadena apartment to pick up a rosary to be buried with her brother.

Even before the shooting, Eddie Hernandez’s behavior had triggered alarm among neighbors in the 20-unit complex. Building manager Bridget Connell said his disruptive activities, including peeking through other tenants’ windows, had prompted her to give the Hernandez family a 30-day eviction notice a few days before the shooting.

A native of El Salvador, Eddie Hernandez had moved to the United States with his family in 1973. He dropped out of school after the ninth grade and worked in construction. But cocaine abuse and mental illness led to his placement in the Highland Park Guest Home, a board-and-care facility where he lived for two years, his family said.

“When he was in the board-and-care home, he was a happy person, always smiling and joking,” said Marie Lopez, assistant administrator of the home.

Lopez said Hernandez kept himself well-groomed and attended classes at an adult school. She recalled one scuffle involving Hernandez and another patient. But usually, she said, he backed away from fights. On one occasion, neighbors threw water balloons at his room, but Hernandez asked Lopez to intervene instead of confronting them himself.

Ledy Hernandez said she believed that her brother was capable of living with the family when he rejoined them in March. But she said he resisted the family’s efforts to continue his medical care.

“We couldn’t force him to go to the doctor,” she said.

About a year before Eddie Hernandez was killed, another Pasadena officer had a fatal run-in with a mentally ill transient.

On Sept. 9, 1990, Officer Louie Armenta, who was off duty at the time, shot and killed Denise Hatcher, 30, after she allegedly lunged at him with a pair of scissors at Memorial Park, police said. An investigation determined that the shooting was justified.

The incident heightened concern within the Police Department. “Here in Pasadena we’ve seen an increase in these kind of encounters,” said Frank Jameson, the department’s psychologist.

Earlier this year, Jameson participated with Pasadena-based Pacific Clinics in the production of a training video on interacting with the mentally ill. All Pasadena officers have been required to view the video and take part in a follow-up discussion.

Jameson said an encounter with a police officer can cause a mentally ill person to become anxious and irrational. He encourages officers to clear the area of distracting onlookers and attempt to calm the individual.

“You try to look comfortable and in control, but you do that without resting your hand on your gun,” the psychologist said. “That sends a mixed message.”

Jameson urges officers not to threaten or try to intimidate a mentally ill person.

“All that does is confirm for the person that he is in immediate danger,” the psychologist said.

Although calming tactics work in many cases, Jameson said, officers sometimes have no choice but to use force. He said the officers acted properly in the Hernandez and Hatcher shootings.

“It’s clear to me that in neither case were there any further alternatives to be exercised on the part of the officers,” he said.