| Frank Lyga | |
|---|---|
| Los Angeles Police Department | |
| Place of birth | - Herkimer County, New York, USA |
| Service branch | United States |
| Years of service | 1986 - 2001 |
| Rank | Sworn in as an Officer - 1986 - Detective I - 1990 |
Frank Lyga (born c. 1957) was an officer in the Hollywood Division of the Los Angeles Police Department known for shooting and killing Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums officer Kevin Gaines.[1] The resulting LAPD investigation of Kevin Gaines helped lead to the Rampart Scandal.
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In 1986, Lyga joined the Los Angeles Police Department after serving with the Mohawk Valley sheriff’s force.[2]
Kevin Gaines was shot and killed on March 18, 1997, by Lyga, who was determined to be acting in self-defense.[2] At the time of his death, Gaines was 31 and a seven-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department.[3] Gaines had ties to Death Row Records, the Bloods, and dated Suge Knight's ex-wife.
Lyga and other members of his team were staking out a suspected methamphetamine dealer, and Lyga was the point man, which required him to sit in an unmarked 1991 Buick Regal waiting for a drug deal to happen, so that he could follow the suspects back to their source and make the necessary arrests.[2]
After the operation had been called off, Lyga drove onto Ventura Boulevard. While he was stopped at a red light, a green sports utility vehicle had pulled up next to him driven by Kevin Gaines who threatened Lyga. In response Lyga told Gaines to pull over for a confrontation. Gaines did pull over, but Lyga instead drove off. Gaines pulled back into traffic, and a chase ensued, with the S.U.V. edging through heavy traffic until it neared Lyga's car. A concerned Lyga radioed his partners for help and readied himself to use his own gun and saw Gaines, had a gun and had threatened Lyga again. Lyga fired two shots at the Gaines the first missing but the second shot hit the driver on his right side just below his armpit, puncturing his heart before stopping in his lung. Gaines then pulled into a gas station and stopped. Lyga pulled into the gas station and identified himself as a police officer and asked a customer coming out of the station's mini-mart to call 911.
Soon, a California Highway Patrol unit arrived,[2] followed by Lyga's captain and the others on his stakeout team. The other officers took control of the scene using standard procedure. When Lyga returned to the station and awaited instructions on the investigation of the shooting he was informed by his commander, Dennis Zuener, that Kevin Gaines was a Los Angeles Police Officer.
The day after the shooting a media frenzy followed. A group of African-Americans, led by Gaines's former partner, Derwin Henderson, showed up at the scene of the incident and began conducting an unofficial investigation. Three days after the shooting, Johnnie Cochran, Jr. stepped into the case, having been hired by Gaines's family to investigate a potential claim against Lyga and the city. Cochran would later file a twenty-five-million-dollar claim against the city, charging that Lyga was "an aggressive and dangerous police officer" who had failed to summon immediate medical assistance for Gaines, contributing to his death, and that he had conspired to "hide and distort the true facts concerning the incident."
The Los Angeles Police Department also announced Lyga’s job performance would be examined. On Lyga's second day back on the job, he was assigned to a desk by the narcotics-division commander, and was told that he had 40 questionable incidents filed, however he had been exonerated in four cases of using unnecessary force or were classified as unfounded or unresolved. He was also tested for signs of racial bias for every use-of-force incident by a demographic examination and there was no signs of racial bias against Lyga found.
District Attorney Gil Garcetti opened a criminal investigation into the shooting. Witnesses to various moments of the event confirmed Lyga's account, as did a surveillance camera at the mini-mart, which recorded the sound of Lyga firing two shots which were taken 1.8 seconds apart.[2] The District Attorney's inquiry eventually ruled that Lyga was not criminally liable. Three months after the incident, the LAPD unit investigating the shooting found that Lyga had acted according to department policy. The department's shooting board recommended no disciplinary action.
The ruling, however was postponed, pending results of a three-dimensional digital re-creation of the shooting. In November, 1997, Lyga appeared again before the shooting board, which reviewed the evidence and the 3-D re-creation, and in December, LAPD chief Bernard Parks reported that the shooting was within department policy; no action would be taken against him.
Even though the re-creation of the shooting supported Lyga’s story, the city and Cochran agreed to a settlement conference the following October,[1] mediated by retired Judge R. William Schoettler, Cochran had reduced his original request of twenty-five million dollars to eight hundred thousand and then to two hundred and fifty thousand—which the city accepted.[1] Judge Schoettler would later write a letter to Parks telling him that he thought had the case gone to trial, he believed Lyga and the city would have won the case. Schoettler added that a settlement had been proposed primarily to avoid adverse publicity, and the settlement could be termed ‘political’ as City Attorney James Hahn was preparing to run for mayor and African American voters made up his principal base and either the fact of the settlement nor the amount involved should in any way reflect upon the conduct of Detective Lyga.
Within months of being cleared, Lyga found himself under investigation again. On March 27, 1998, one pound of cocaine evidence booked from one of Lyga's previous arrests was found missing from the Parker Center property room.[1]
Investigators eventually learned that the missing cocaine had been stolen by Rafael Perez, who they suspected, at the time, of targeting Lyga in retaliation for the shooting of Gaines. The arrest of Perez, along with Gaines's death would cause investigations that would lead to the Rampart Scandal.
| Notable accused officers | Victims | Coverup and investigation | Gang involvement | Other elements |
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