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LAPD questions a crucial mistake
What went wrong?
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This is an excellent article and goes a long way toward explaining why police departments all over the country are taking stalking and domestic violence cases more seriously than in years past. They've learned from their mistakes.
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  LAPD questions a crucial mistake
The night Flor Medrano was stabbed, LAPD officers were standing watch outside her apartment to see that she came to no harm.

So what went wrong?

by Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

March 2, 2011

 
Flor Medrano went to the police for help.

At dusk on a November evening in 2009, Medrano, a 30-year-old housekeeper with an easy smile and a love for Mexican Norteño music, came into the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire Division station. She had hardly slept for days. Her estranged, abusive boyfriend was stalking her and threatening to kill her. Medrano was terrified.

Tony Hyong Im, an officer with 12 years on the job, his rookie partner Hugo Fuentes, and a detective, Edward Ruffalo, were assigned to the case. The three spent hours with Medrano at the station, and later Im and Fuentes escorted her back to her mid-Wilshire neighborhood.

Medrano climbed the stairs to her apartment on the second floor and disappeared inside. The officers kept watch from their car across the street, figuring her boyfriend, Daniel Carlon, might show.

Carlon, however, was already in the apartment. Strung out on cocaine and methamphetamine, he attacked Medrano with a foot-long knife, stabbing her repeatedly in the legs and chest. Hearing Medrano's screams, the officers bolted up the stairs. A metal security door and metal bars on the window allowed them no way in.

Peering through a small break in a window shade, Im saw Medrano, her shirt soaked in blood. Carlon was coming at her from behind with the knife raised.

The officer couldn't get a shot at him without likely hitting Medrano. "Police! Drop the knife!" Im shouted. "Drop the knife!"

Carlon hesitated, apparently surprised by the officer's presence. Then, he lunged at Medrano.

A single gunshot cracked the air.

The events of that night would give rise to troubling questions. Had mistakes been made? Could the attack have been prevented?

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Medrano and Carlon had met years before through her sister. They dated for a while, but Medrano broke off the relationship when she discovered that Carlon, 23, had lied about his age. The pair lost touch, but reconnected again in the spring of 2009.

It seemed like a good match. "She was so happy, always talking about how much she wanted to be with him," recalled Medrano's sister, Diana. Carlon doted on Medrano's toddler daughter from a previous relationship, Mariana, and the little girl adored him, adding to the sense that things were working out well, the sister said.

But in private, the relationship was abusive and volatile. Her close friend, Sherrie Martinez, and Medrano's sister recalled the day she appeared with a black eye and said she had fallen while working for a family in the Hollywood Hills. Later, Medrano admitted to police that Carlon had assaulted her several times.

On the Sunday before the attack, Medrano and Carlon had a nasty argument when she caught him scrolling through her cellphone to see who she had been calling. The next night, she went to a bar with Martinez to talk. "She was very upset," her friend recalled. "She said something like, 'I never wanted to see this side of him, but I see it now.' She was scared of how jealous he was."

While the women were out, Carlon went to Martinez's home looking for Medrano. He was on the lawn with a hammer in his hand when they returned. The women sneaked in through a back door and Carlon started screaming for Medrano to come outside. When she refused, he smashed the windshield of her car and drove off.

Medrano called the LAPD and officers came to take a report, but it does not appear that any serious effort was made to locate Carlon. Martinez said Medrano stayed up until nearly dawn, saying over and over, "I can't believe this is happening. I don't know what I am going to do."

Late the next night, Medrano was awakened by Carlon at her front door. Crying, he apologized and begged to be let in. Medrano's daughter awoke and Carlon reached through a window to embrace her. "What's wrong, Mommy?" the girl asked, growing upset. "Why won't you let him in?"

Medrano, who recounted the scene to Martinez, opened the door. Once inside, Carlon raped her. He stayed the night, telling her he had a gun.

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As Medrano worked the next day, Carlon sent her dozens of messages, some professing his love and others vowing to kill her. After work, she returned to her neighborhood, where she walked up to a pair of officers on the street as they finished writing a ticket. The officers instructed Medrano to follow them in her car to the station.

They were at the end of their shift, so a supervisor called Im and Fuentes in from the field. They, along with Det. Ruffalo, introduced themselves to the frightened woman. Medrano told them about the rape and the threats, which Carlon continued to send on her cellphone while she was at the station. At one point, Carlon called and told her he would stab her to death if she went to the police.

The officers tried without success to convince Medrano to go with them to a hospital for a medical exam. Leaving her for a while at the station, they went in search of Carlon. And Ruffalo tried to set a trap by having Medrano call Carlon and suggest a meeting at a local laundromat. At first he agreed, but then canceled.

The detective also instructed Im to obtain an emergency protective order from court officials, which would have barred Carlon from having contact with Medrano until she could seek a formal restraining order. The emergency order would have obligated Im and Fuentes "to use every reasonable means" to find Carlon and serve him with the order.

But Im decided that Medrano's situation did not meet the requirement of "immediate and present danger of domestic abuse … or stalking." He never sought the emergency order.

By then an exhausted Medrano had been at the station for hours. Im suggested she spend the night in the lobby or at a women's shelter. But, with her daughter with relatives for the night and the security bars on her window and door, she told the officers she felt safe enough to return home.

Im suggested that he and Fuentes accompany her and keep watch for Carlon. Medrano agreed. From inside their unmarked police car, Im and Fuentes had a clear view of Medrano's front door.

About 30 minutes after arriving, Fuentes called her cellphone and got no answer. He waited five minutes and tried again, but she did not pick up. Medrano answered a third call with "hello," but hung up immediately. There were four more calls over the next few minutes and each time whoever was on Medrano's end hung up.

Fuentes called once more. Medrano was screaming.

Im sprinted up the stairs and, finding the metal security door bolted from the inside, moved over to the window. He drew his gun.

Carlon brought the knife down on Medrano, slicing through her lung and piercing her heart. She fell backward, giving Im a clear shot. The officer fired, hitting Carlon in the chest. Carlon crumpled to the ground.

Im and Fuentes, who stood nearby, were helpless to do anything for Medrano. "Sweetie, come to me," Im pleaded with the bleeding woman. "Come to me. Open the door."

She crawled to it. "I can't," she said, trying to unlatch the lock. She slumped against the wall. Other police were arriving, but it took several minutes to pry open the door. Doctors pronounced Medrano dead soon after she arrived at a nearby hospital.

Carlon died later that night as well.

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In the weeks that followed, the officers were commended for their actions. Capt. Eric Davis, their commanding officer, forcefully defended them against questions from reporters, calling them "diligent in their efforts."

The county Board of Supervisors paid tribute to Im, Fuentes and Ruffalo for their "heroic" efforts to save Medrano and for going "beyond the expectations of 'To Protect and To Serve,' " the LAPD's motto.

At some level, the admiration was warranted. There seems to be no doubt that the officers tried to do right by a woman who had come to them for help. But a routine internal investigation led LAPD officials to soon question the decisions made that night. As the inquiry progressed, the early praise increasingly seemed misplaced.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, a team of command-level officers that reviewed the case, and the civilian commission that oversees the department all faulted the officers for mistakes. They criticized Ruffalo for, among other things, not confirming that Im and Fuentes had obtained the emergency protective order. They also found that the two officers were too slow in becoming suspicious as they tried to reach Medrano on the phone.

But most troubling to the officials who reviewed the case was the failure by Im and Fuentes to make sure Medrano's apartment was safe before letting her go inside.

It was a crucial mistake. Had they gone inside, it is likely they would have discovered Carlon or seen that the screen on a bathroom window had been forced off. In failing to search the apartment, Beck and the commissioners concluded in their reports, "the officers failed to perform the basic duty of protecting the public."

Ultimately, Im took responsibility for the decision. He had reasoned that Carlon might be watching for Medrano and seeing police with her could scare him away. "We don't want to burn the location by having police all over," Im explained to investigators.

Police officials struggled with how harshly to discipline the officers. They had done more than the minimum required, which would have been to take a report and send Medrano on her way. And passing judgment in hindsight on officers who, as Beck acknowledged in his report, "are forced to make split-second decisions under very stressful and dynamic circumstances," didn't sit well with some. But a woman was dead.

Fuentes was absolved of responsibility because the rookie was taking directions from Im, his field training officer. Ruffalo was merely reprimanded since he wasn't involved in the decisions at the apartment, according to officials familiar with the investigation. The department, the officials said, is planning to lower Im's rank — a significant censure that carries a loss of pay and standing. He is expected to appeal the decision.

"We can't just give officers a free pass because their intentions were good," said a senior LAPD official, who requested anonymity because discipline cases are confidential. "Too much is at stake. People's lives depend on what our officers do or don't do."

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Flor Medrano's funeral was attended by a few hundred people, family members said. Her favorite Norteño band traveled from Chicago to play ballads as she was buried. Medrano's daughter, Mariana, now 5, lives with her father.

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This article was based on information contained in records of the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County district attorney's office and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, as well as interviews. The records include the LAPD's official review, analysis and findings of the incident, and the Board of Police Commissioners' findings of the incident. Officers Im and Fuentes and Det. Ruffalo declined to comment for the article.