By Rod Leveque
San Bernardino County Sun
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — A jury took less than four hours Thursday to acquit a former sheriff’s deputy of charges he illegally shot an unarmed suspect at the end of a high-speed car chase in Chino.
Ivory J. Webb Jr. thrust his hands into the air and embraced his attorneys as a court clerk read the not-guilty verdicts in a jam-packed San Bernardino courtroom.
“I want to say I feel great,” Webb said outside the courtroom a few minutes later. “I’m ecstatic.”
The verdict brings to an end a monthlong trial in which the key piece of evidence was a grainy, amateur videotape of the Jan. 29, 2006, shooting.
The video, which gained widespread notoriety after it was broadcast on television news and the Internet, appeared to show Webb shoot Elio Carrion as Carrion, an off-duty Air Force senior airman on leave from Iraq, followed the deputy’s orders to “get up” off the ground.
Prosecutors contended the tape showed Webb as an angry, out-of-control officer who used deadly force on a suspect who was trying to peacefully surrender.
Webb’s lawyers claimed the deputy fired in self-defense while trying to single-handedly apprehend two drunken and belligerent criminals.
They said the video showed Carrion reach a hand inside his jacket, as for a weapon, and lunge at Webb.
Michael Schwartz, one of Webb’s two attorneys, said Webb went into the trial with a disadvantage because so many people had already seen snippets of the videotape and assumed Webb to be guilty.
The defense attorney praised the jurors for looking beyond their initial impressions of the tape and considering the stress and fear Webb felt that night.
“My client did his best under really horrible circumstances,” Schwartz said. “Hopefully, now he can go back to a somewhat normal life.”
Prosecutors charged Webb, 46, with attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm, plus enhancements for gun use and causing great bodily injury. He could have faced up to 18 years in prison if convicted.
His case is only the second on record in San Bernardino County in which county prosecutors brought criminal charges against a law-enforcement officer in connection with an on-duty shooting.
Deputy District Attorney Lewis Cope, who prosecuted the case, said Thursday he was “obviously disappointed” by the outcome.
“At the same time, I’ve got a lot of confidence that the jury worked very hard and did what they had to do,” Cope said. “We’re going to respect and honor their verdict.”
Cope said he was not surprised the eight-man, four-woman jury reached a unanimous decision so quickly given the amount of time they sat in court listening to evidence.
He also said he had no regrets about his handling of the case.
“I’m not sure if it was retried I would have done very much differently,” he said.
Webb strode into the courtroom Thursday afternoon looking confident, flanked by his two attorneys. His father, a former Compton police chief, his wife, and about a half-dozen other relatives sat a few feet behind him.
He exploded with joy after the verdicts were announced. He wrapped an arm around each of his two lawyers and pulled them close his sides.
Schwartz pounded his fist on the counsel table in celebration.
Webb then clasped his hands together and raised them over his head, as to thank the heavens for his liberation.
Outside the courtroom he repeatedly thanked God and the jurors for bringing him through the trial victorious.
The shooting occurred on a darkened street in a residential neighborhood in Chino.
Elio Carrion was the passenger in a Corvette that fled from Webb at speeds up to 100 mph. The chase ended when the driver, Luis Fernando Escobedo, crashed into a fence and wall on Francis Street. Both Carrion and Escobedo were drunk.
Carrion, who is trained as a military policeman, got out of the car and remained near the passenger door as Webb approached with his gun drawn. A nearby resident grabbed a camcorder and taped the altercation that followed.
The tape shows Webb kick Carrion to the ground as both Carrion and Escobedo jaw at the deputy. Webb repeatedly and profanely ordered both men to shut up, but they ignored him and kept talking.
Carrion also reached a hand toward Webb several times, despite the deputy’s repeated orders for Carrion to keep his hands on the ground.
Carrion is heard on the tape telling Webb, “We’re here on your side,” and “we mean you no harm.”
He goes on to tell Webb, “I served more time than you in the (expletive) police, in the (expletive) military, OK,” as he motions with his hand near the zipper of his jacket.
Webb appears to then calmly tell him, “OK, get up then, get up.”
As Carrion rises, Webb shoots him three times, and Carrion drops to the ground moaning in pain.
Carrion was shot in the chest, shoulder and leg.
During the trial, Webb’s lawyers painted Carrion and Escobedo as the aggressors in the incident.
They told jurors that Webb had to assume both men were dangerous criminals based upon the high-speed chase they led him on.
Webb also had to assume that any movements Carrion made could pose a threat, and his stress was heightened when the men both refused to obey his commands to keep quiet, the attorneys claimed.
Webb probably sputtered out the words “get up” by mistake, when he meant to order Carrion to stay down, they claimed.
Had Carrion and Escobedo simply behaved that night, the shooting never would have happened, they said.
On Thursday, jurors overwhelmingly agreed.
Carrion’s attorney, Luis Carrillo, said he fears the jury’s decision greenlights young law-enforcement officers to use excessive force on citizens.
He called Webb “a criminal.”
“It’s a sad day in the U.S. when a soldier gets gunned down in cold blood and the cop gets away with it,” he said.
Carrion’s family held a news conference late Thursday evening outside their Montclair home.
Carrion’s father, Heliodoro Carrion, and Elio Carrion’s aunt and godmother, Connie Madrigal, spoke to the media with several other siblings and family members standing behind them.
“As you can tell, the jury’s verdict was an injustice — it was a great injustice to our military hero, Elio,” Madrigal said.
The verdict is not the end of the case, Madrigal said.
The family plans to go to Los Angeles on Monday to speak with members of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to see if they can prosecute the case in federal court.
Following Madrigal’s comments, Elio Carrion’s father said that if everyone accompanied them to Los Angeles they might be heard.
“I want to know, where is the justice?” Heliodoro Carrion said.
Like Madrigal, he said the jury didn’t listen to what the prosecutors had to say.
Former San Bernardino County sheriff s Deputy Ivory J. Webb Jr. hugs his attorney, Michael Schwartz, as they listen to his not-guilty verdicts inSan Bernardino Superior Court on Thursday. Webb was on trial for the shooting of Senior Airman Elio Carrion in Chino.
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