Family Says Slain Man Was Unarmed

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies wrongfully gunned down a man who died during a shootout in the Walnut Park area that also claimed the life of deputy sheriff, the man’s family said Wednesday.

R. Samuel Paz, an attorney representing the wife and children of Homero Isidoro Ibarra, 30, said Ibarra was unarmed and was complying with the deputies’ commands to walk out with his hands raised when he was shot to death Sunday night outside a garage in the 2500 block of Cass Place.

However, Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday night that Ibarra was armed with a realistic replica of a pistol and was shot when he ignored orders to drop the weapon and raise his hands.

The brief but intense gun battle also claimed the life of Nelson H. Yamamoto, 26, the first county sheriff’s deputy to die in hostile action since 1989.

Deputies say they are still searching for two men who escaped during Sunday’s shootout. One of them, Cesar Uriel Mazariego-Molina, 26, is accused of shooting Yamamoto. Mazariego-Molina is also wanted as a suspect in a murder in North Hollywood and for two murders in El Salvador. The other fugitive is Juan Manuel Mazariego, 22, Mazariego-Molina’s cousin.

Paz said Maria Ibarra and her three children will file a wrongful-death complaint with the Sheriff’s Department, possibly as early as today. The lawyer said the complaint is based on what he was able to piece together after talking to two of the children and 17-year-old Frankie Soto, all of whom reportedly witnessed the shootout.

Paz said Homero Ibarra barely knew the cousins, who lived nearby, but as a neighborly gesture he invited them to join him for a beer in the garage behind his home.

“He was just a nice guy, trying to be pleasant,” the lawyer said. “When he heard the deputies shout, ‘Everybody come out with their hands up!’ he complied. . . .

“Mazariego-Molina ran past him, and shot Yamamoto,” Paz said. “The deputies fired and Ibarra fell to the ground. . . . Mazariego-Molina kept running and he got away. At the same time, the cousin ran out through the house, and he escaped, too.”

But the Sheriff’s Department has a different account of what happened Sunday night.

According to Block, the incident began at 8:10 p.m. Sunday when Yamamoto and two other deputies from the Firestone Station responded to a call that a man with a gun had been threatening a resident on Cass Place.

“That man was Ibarra,” Block said Wednesday night.

Directed to the garage at the rear of a home, the officers “peered through a window, and they saw an individual removing a firearm from his waistband and (putting) it on a counter,” the sheriff said.

Block said that when the deputies ordered the men inside to walk out with their hands up, “Ibarra came out first, and he had the gun in his hand at his side. . . .

“He was ordered to drop the weapon and face the garage,” the sheriff said. “Simultaneously, gunshots started coming from the garage. At that time, the deputies opened fire. . . . Ibarra was fatally wounded. The shots (that hit him) probably came from the deputies.”

As Yamamoto, who was cut down in the furious exchange of gunfire, slumped to the ground, Mazariego-Molina and Mazariego escaped. Paz said Wednesday that no gun that Ibarra might have been carrying was ever found. But Block said deputies found a replica of a .45-caliber pistol beside his body.