The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is no longer seeking the death penalty for a gang member accused of fatally shooting one police officer and trying to kill another one in 2017, prosecutors told a judge in the case Thursday, Feb. 18.
Whittier Officer Keith Boyer, 53, was the first police officer in the city killed in the line of duty since 1979.
The decision by the DA’s Office is the opposite of its stance in 2018, when prosecutors said they were going for the death penalty in the case of 30-year-old Michael Christopher Mejia. But under new DA George Gascon’s directive, the DA’s Office will no longer seek the death penalty.
The two prosecutors in the case told the judge at a pretrial hearing they were against that decision.
“Over the objection of Mr. (Geoff) Lewin and I and despite our attempts to prevent this from happening, we’ve been ordered to remove the death penalty as punishment consideration in this case,” Deputy District Attorney Garrett Dameron said during Thursday’s hearing at Norwalk Superior Court.
Mejia is also accused of killing his 47-year-old cousin, Roy Torres, on Feb. 20, 2017 in East Los Angeles before the shootout with police in Whittier. Family members for both victims and Whittier police Chief Aviv Bar spoke at the hearing, too.
The officer’s son, Josh Boyer, said the day his father died was the worst day of his life. He is “wanting some justice,” he said.
One of Torres’ relatives, Tiffany Garcia, said, “I will be his voice, but this isn’t justice.”
Bar said the purpose of the police department and the families attending the hearing was to put their objections on the record on any future requests by the DA’s Office to remove any applicable charges and sentencing enhancements in the case.
“I also conveyed to the judge the devastation that the execution of Officer Boyer on our city streets has had on the well-being and morale of the men and women who guard and protect the city,” Bar said.
On Feb. 20, 2017, Mejia went to East Los Angeles, where he allegedly argued with his cousin, fatally shot him then stole his cousin’s car, according to sheriff’s detectives.
He crashed into a car on Colima Road and Mar Vista Street in Whittier. Officers who responded to the crash included Boyer and Patrick Hazell. When the officers ordered Mejia to get out of the car, investigators said, he started shooting.
Both officers were hit. Hazell survived his injuries while Boyer died in the hospital. Mejia was shot in the back during the shootout.
Mejia admitted to the shootings during a Feb. 28, 2017 interview with Sheriff’s homicide detectives at the Los Angeles County USC Medical Center jail ward.
“I guess you guys have everything down, smoked my cousin, smoked the cop I mean. I mean, what else do you guys want? I shot another cop. (Expletive) shot me, he shot me,” Mejia told the detectives, according to court records.
He said he shot the officer who was shooting at him. The officers had it coming, he added.
He later said he should have shot the officer quicker, records show.
“I should have put more slugs in him … I would have smoked both of them, then I would have really got away,” Mejia said.
Mejia also told detectives the second officer was lucky he was not killed.
“He’s lucky or he would have been in a casket right now,” Mejia said. “I swear to God he would have been dead dropped, homie, I had my Glock on me.”
Prosecutors charged Mejia with two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, carjacking and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He was also charged with the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders, murder of a police officer and murder to escape arrest which made him eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
In addition, the prosecutors filed gun-related and gang allegations against Mejia.
“The special circumstance allegations and enhancements remain,” said Greg Risling, a spokesman for the DA’s Office. “Our office will not be asking to make a motion in the future to dismiss any other allegations.”
When he was sworn into office, Gascon unveiled several directives. On the death penalty, Gascon wrote that a sentence of death is never an appropriate resolution in any case, that studies found that race influences who is sentenced to die in the country and the state, that the death penalty is costly and that there is a real risk of executing innocent people.
“The office will strive to ensure that all actions taken are consistent with this policy, including refraining from filing letters stating an intention to seek the death penalty, filing briefs, seeking discovery, or making arguments in court that indicate that the death penalty is an appropriate sentence,” according to the policy.
Under Gascon’s directives, the DA’s Office also would not file special circumstance allegations that will lead to a sentence of life in prison without parole and will seek the dismissal of special circumstance allegations in existing cases.
However, the DA’s Office currently cannot do that because of a preliminary injunction stemming from a civil lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Association of Deputy District Attorneys against Gascon. The lawsuit asked the courts to cease the enforcement of some of the special directives.
The judge granted the preliminary injunction on Feb. 8. Gascon plans to appeal.
Matt Murphy, who represents Boyer’s son, Boyer’s stepfather and Tiffany Garcia, called Gascon’s directives poorly written, contradictory and unfair to victims’ families.
He said Gascon wants to dismiss the special circumstance allegations and other sentencing enhancements in the case against Mejia.
Victims’ families trying to get prepared to address the court get the rug pulled out from under them, Murphy said. He said Thursday’s hearing was a good example of that, as Boyer’s and Torres’ relatives were preparing to talk about the sentencing enhancements in the Mejia case.
Mejia, who remains in county jail, is scheduled to return to Norwalk Superior Court on April 15.
City News Service contributed to this report