Frank Lyga (born ) is an American former police officer of the Los Angeles Police Department, who shot and killed officer Kevin Gaines. The resulting LAPD investigation of Kevin Gaines helped lead to the Rampart Scandal.
Early career
In 1986, Lyga joined the Los Angeles Police Department after serving with a sheriff's department in the Mohawk Valley of New York.
Kevin Gaines shooting
Kevin Gaines was shot and killed on March 18, 1997, by Lyga, who was ultimately determined to have been acting in self-defense. At the time of his death, Gaines was 31 and had been a member of the Los Angeles Police Department for seven years. Gaines had ties to Death Row Records, the Bloods, and was living with Suge Knight's ex-wife.
Lyga, assigned to the Narcotics Division Clandestine Lab Squad at the time, along other members of his team was staking out a suspected methamphetamine dealer. 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.
The operation was called off, and Lyga drove onto Ventura Boulevard. While he was stopped at a red light, a green sports utility vehicle driven by Gaines pulled up next to him; Gaines threatened Lyga. In response Lyga told Gaines to pull over for a confrontation. Gaines did pull over, but Lyga drove off; Gaines chased him, 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. He saw Gaines had a gun and had threatened Lyga again. Lyga fired two shots at Gaines; the first missed, but the second hit the driver just below his right 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 the 911 emergency number.
Soon a California Highway Patrol unit arrived, 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.
Aftermath of the shooting
The day after the shooting a media frenzy followed. A group of African-Americans, led by Gaines's former partners Derwin Henderson and Bruce Stallworth, went to the scene of the incident and began conducting an unofficial investigation. That conduct intimidated known witnesses. 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 later filed 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 his job, he was assigned to a desk by the narcotics-division commander, and was told that he had 40 questionable use-of-force incidents filed, however he had been exonerated in four cases of using unnecessary force, or the cases 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; no signs of racial bias by Lyga were 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 1.8 seconds apart. 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, and 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 3D re-creation, and in December LAPD chief Bernard Parks reported that the shooting was within department policy; no action would be taken against Lyga.