LAPD Defends Halloween Party Shooting

Oct. 30, 2000 -- A witness to the fatal police shooting of a Halloween partygoer who was carrying a fake gun says the officer did “nothing” to identify himself or warn the victim before firing.

“It was completely unexpected,” said Erik Quisling, who was just a few feet from Anthony Dwain Lee when the 39-year-old actor was shot at a Los Angeles-area party early Saturday morning.

Quisling told ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America today that Lee may have thought the officer was just another guest in costume.

“I saw several partygoers dressed as police officers,” Quisling said.

Questions Over Racial Profiling

Quisling is one of a chorus of witnesses and friends of Lee who are decrying the shooting at the Benedict Canyon mansion in the hills above West Los Angeles. Some have raised the question of whether Lee may have been a victim of racial profiling.

Lee was black, as is the officer involved in the incident, Tarriel Hopper.

Police Chief Bernard C. Parks on Mondayblamed a realistic-looking prop gun for the fatal police shootingof an actor at a weekend costume party.  Hopper, who fired nine shots at Lee through awindow of a West Los Angeles mansion after seeing him raise whatlooked like a gun, had “no time” to find out if the weapon wasreal or to shout a warning, the chief said at a news conference.

Hopper, 27, who has been with the department forthree years, has been placed on paid leave while the LAPD andcounty district attorney’s office investigate the death.

Parks today displayed Lee’s prop gun, which he said was madeof solid gray rubber in the shape of an Israeli-made .357-caliber DesertEagle semiautomatic handgun.

Parks said such replicas — often used as movie props — have ledto at least seven recent officer-involved shootings. He did notelaborate and left the news conference without answering questions.

“Whether it’s a Halloween party, on the street or at a robbery… we can’t take for granted that [a gun] is a replica,” Parkssaid.

Parks expressed his department’s “deep condolences” to Lee’sfamily. “It’s a tragic event,” he said.

Lee’s sister Tina Vogt, who works for the Sacramento PoliceDepartment, said she is baffled by the killing and questioned theLAPD’s account of the shooting. She said she planned to attend a vigil her brother’s friends planned tonight outside the precinct building where Hopper is stationed.

Started With a Noise ComplaintPolice said Hopper and his partner arrived at the party to answer a noise complaint around 1 a.m., and were searching for the owner when they looked through a window and saw Lee and two othersin a small room.

The coroner later reported that Lee was wearing a black sweatshirt, a black vest and tan pants, but it was not immediately clear if he had a mask or other costume.

“He had no way of knowing it was fake even though people werein costume. If you feel your life is threatened, you react in theway you were trained,” said Officer Charlotte Broughton, a policespokeswoman.

“I think most people can understand where we’re coming from asfar as what we have to do. We’re risking our lives every day,” sheadded.

Broughton refused to say whether Hopper identified himself before firing.

Steve Sims, a party guest, told the Los Angeles Times that Hopper appeared distraught after the shooting and repeatedly asked, “Why did he have to pull thatgun?”

The department and the county district attorney’s office will investigate the incident.

Rampart’s ShadowFriends of Lee described him as a devout Buddhist who had turned away from a violent world of gangs and drugs he had joined in his youth.

Lee grew up in Sacramento, Calif., where he dealt drugs as amember of the Crips street gang. He turned to acting after gettingstabbed in the back during a fight.

Lee’s mother paid the $30 fee for his first acting course, which eventually led to supporting roles on television shows, including ER and NYPD Blue, and the 1997 Jim Carrey movie Liar, Liar.

He was also a well-known stage actor in Seattle.

The shooting comes as the nation’s second-largest police forcestruggles through the worst scandal in department history, theallegations of perjury and abuse by anti-gang officers in theRampart division.

The LAPD has other problems as a result of officer-involvedshootings, too, including a lawsuit by the family of a mentally illhomeless woman, Margaret Mitchell, who was shot and killed in May1999 after she allegedly lunged at an officer with a screwdriver.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.