Officer’s Assault Trial Ends on Dramatic Note

In a dramatic conclusion to an intense two-week trial, a prosecutor urged a Ventura County jury Friday to convict a popular Oxnard police officer of using excessive force during the arrest of two fleeing suspects more than a year ago.

But the defense attorney for Officer Robert Flinn told the jury that there is no solid evidence to prove that his client stepped over the line of proper police conduct, and therefore he must be found not guilty.

The attorneys’ final remarks--theatrically delivered to a courtroom packed with Oxnard police officers, prosecutors and Flinn’s family--concluded the Superior Court trial. The jury is expected to begin deliberations Monday.

Flinn, 29, is charged with four counts of assault under color of authority for allegedly striking Juan Lopez on the head with a flashlight Jan. 27, 1996, and kicking Victor Aguiar in the face Dec. 27, 1995.

More than a dozen officers and high-ranking officials with the Oxnard Police Department have testified during the trial. Many others, including retired personnel and supporters, have attended the tense proceedings.

Only one officer has testified against Flinn--former Oxnard Officer David Hawtin, who told the jury that he saw Flinn strike Lopez on the head with his flashlight.

During his closing statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael K. Frawley told the jury that Hawtin, who is now a police officer in Tennessee, had no reason to lie about the incident.

“It is clear that Officer Hawtin got nothing but the wrath of his peers by coming here,” Frawley said.

Slowly reviewing the evidence, Frawley told the jury that Lopez was violently struck in the head by Flinn after a foot chase through an Oxnard neighborhood. He said Lopez had surrendered to Flinn, but was hit anyway.

“There was no call for it,” Frawley said, demonstrating how Flinn must have swung his flashlight and struck Lopez on the head. “It was just viciousness.”

After the alleged beating, Frawley said, Flinn repeatedly tried to contact another officer at the scene that day, presumably to get their stories straight, Frawley said. He also told the jury that Flinn pushed his supervisors to charge Lopez with assaulting a police officer.

In his closing statement and during the trial, Flinn’s defense attorney, William Hadden, called those allegations baseless.

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In the incident involving Aguiar, Frawley told the jury that Flinn kicked Aguiar in the face, bloodying his nose as he lay defenseless on the ground.

The prosecutor then suggested that several officers conspired in a cover-up to protect Flinn.

“It’s another example of how everyone happens to be looking away when the assault occurs,” Frawley said.

Throughout his two-hour closing argument, Frawley leveled serious allegations against four other officers, suggesting that they had shaded the truth and in some cases blatantly lied to shield Flinn from a conviction.

“You’ve seen the ‘code of silence’ in operation in this courtroom,” Frawley said.

But in his final remarks, Hadden told the jury that the witnesses whose credibility should be called into question were not the Oxnard police officers, but former Officer Hawtin, Lopez and Aguiar.

Hadden scoffed at the attacks on his client’s character, reminding the jury how one commander had described Flinn as an exceptional police officer with no record of excessive force.

And he told jurors that they must acquit Flinn because evidence does not meet the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Until the government meets that standard,” Hadden said, “he is entitled to a verdict of not guilty.”

Hadden acknowledged that Flinn struck Lopez during the arrest, but in the chest, not in the head. It was not excessive force, Hadden argued, but a “take-down” maneuver consistent with police training.

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If Flinn had hit Lopez in the head with his flashlight, Hadden added, Lopez would have sustained far more serious injuries. Hadden suggested that the cut on Lopez’s head, which required eight stitches, was caused when he hit the ground after Flinn knocked him in the chest.

“Anything unreasonable about that?” he asked the jury. “I don’t think so.”

As for the Aguiar incident, Hadden said the alleged kick to the face never occurred. He reminded the jury that Aguiar was unable to identify Flinn in court, and suggested that the charge from Aguiar was added to bolster the district attorney’s case.

“There is nothing--nothing--to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt to show that the defendant kicked Mr. Aguiar,” Hadden concluded.

In asking for an acquittal, Hadden also asked the jury for a vote of confidence in the entire Oxnard Police Department.

“I would like you to send a message,” Hadden said in reference to a comment made during Frawley’s final remarks, “that these men and women are not just ‘a bunch of guys in blue suits.’ ”