Accounts Differ in Malibu Canyon Park Shooting Death

• Los Angeles Man Killed by State Parks Ranger Investigating Report of Gunfire Saturday

BY HANS LAETZ

Was it a case of a twitchy ex-con nudging his car up against a police officer? Or a nervous park ranger fumbling with his equipment and overreacting to a confused man?

A team of outside homicide detectives is investigating Saturday afternoon’s shooting death of a South Los Angeles man at a crowded Malibu Canyon park entrance by a police-certified California State Parks Department ranger.

The shooting death of Arturo Guzman, 29, is being investigated by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office, California Highway Patrol and the state parks agency. Park rangers are certified police officers with full law enforcement training, in addition to being naturalists and park guides.

The scene at the park after the 3 p.m. shooting Saturday was chaotic—the incident occurred 200 yards inside the entrance gate at the Tapia Park entrance, just north of the Piuma Road signal. Hundreds of people were inside that section of the park, where cool oak groves and a few swimming holes along Malibu Creek are a magnet for crowds from the hot Los Angeles basin.

The shooting occurred when a park ranger with four years’ experience drove into the park to investigate a report of gunfire. Gang members from the city are known to settle scores under the oaks, parks officials say.

As the ranger—whose name is not being released—drove into the first parking lot, a car edged out of the lot. The ranger got out of his marked Ford Expedition, stood in front of the other vehicle, and said he repeatedly ordered its driver to stop.

“He was wearing a uniform, he had just emerged from his marked state car, and he repeatedly ordered the man to stop the car,” said Assistant State Parks Director Roy Stearns.

“This incident went in one second from ‘I need to question you’ to ‘Oh crap, you’re trying to run me over,’” he said. “The officer had a split second to determine what was happening, and then the car bumped into him.”

Guzman’s brother and sister appeared at Sunday’s official news conference on the shooting to confront the police, and contradict their version of the events.

“My brother did pull over and he put his hands up,” said Krystal Guzman, clutching a cell phone and unsuccessfully holding back tears.

She told the row of TV cameras “I guess the park ranger was nervous because he was trying to pull out his gun, he was trying to call reinforcements, he was trying to do a lot of different things at the same time, but he pulled out his gun and he shot him in the head.”

The victim reportedly had recently been released from state prison for assault on a police officer.

When the gunfire rang out, parents grabbed their children and retreated from the area, witnesses said. As other police units arrived, the three passengers in Guzman’s car ran into the surrounding hills amid the confusion.

The area was cordoned off, and a search began. Helicopters assisted in finding the three persons, as rangers were not sure if they were suspects in the original “shots fired” call, said park Superintendent Ron Schaefer.

“We had to contain the scene, and collect witnesses, plus we had the three outstanding subjects out in the hills somewhere,” he said.

The three passengers were taken into custody, questioned and released. Rangers said it did not appear that they were involved in any crime, including whatever triggered the original report of gunfire.

Other state parks rangers from as far away as Pismo Beach and San Onofre were rushed to Malibu to handle other crowded sections of the sprawling joint state and federal parklands.

Sheriff’s deputies, CHP officers, fire paramedics and rangers from the Mountain Resources Conservation Authority and the National Park Service also went to Tapia Park, where hundreds of people had to be diverted around the shooting scene at the park entrance to leave the once-peaceful glen.

“People were pretty good about it,” said an exhausted Schaefer Sunday afternoon, 24 hours after the shooting.

Stearns said his understanding of the officer’s account is based on preliminary reports at the scene. “We have not had a chance to debrief the officer yet.”

Sheriff’s homicide detectives will conduct the formal criminal probe, and the ranger has been placed on leave until the results are in, both of which are standard procedures. Since the ranger is a state police officer, the CHP will conduct the administrative review for State Parks.

Schaefer said California park rangers serve an unusual hybrid role, usually graduating from college with degrees relating to forestry or wildlands management, then going to a police academy for training in law enforcement.

“Our people do not go into this job to wear a badge, and we’ve only had five or seven shootings in our entire history,” he said Sunday afternoon. “But they know they can go from doing a campfire program to heavy law enforcement on any given shift.”