An infamous LAPD scandal, a gang shooting and a 25-year fight to prove a teen innocent

The LA police claimed that night that he had committed gang revenge and that Oscar Eagle could barely walk.

In March 1998, Eagle was only 17 years old and left with a cane after being injured in a driving shooting. To date, the bullet is still on his legs, characterized by coin-shaped dents on his calf.

Police accused Eagle of firing at 18th Street gang members in the Retribution Act, saying he was at East Los Angeles Hospital because a friend’s cousin was giving birth.

The eagle knew he was innocent. Witnesses placed him in the hospital and he said medical records could prove that he did not have enough cell phones to commit the crime.

But the Los Angeles Police Department’s notorious corrupt force members arrested a combination of suspicious legal representatives and arrests, and the Eagle was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In July, the judge approved a joint motion from the California Innocence Program and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for the evacuation of the Eagle, citing the invalidity of the attorney and questions about the LAPD detective’s conduct in the case.

For reform advocates, the Eagle’s case represents a problem of prosecution of teenage adults, but it also marks a positive signal from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office under Nathan Hochman, who appeared in person at the Eagles’ free-set hearing.

“That’s what I dream about every day,” Eagle, 45, said in an interview in late July.

Founded in 2015 and expanded under previous regions. Atti. Hochman George Gascón expressed his ongoing commitment to the conviction review department. The unit has faced criticism after recording only four disclaimers from 2015 to 2020, according to a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office.

“I think when you appear in court, the DA sends a strong message, which is both a situation that the DA’s office is very concerned about and that you want to see justice,” Hochman said.

Seeing the Los Angeles County’s top attorney personally acknowledged his release, it was a stark turn for the Eagle, who spent most of his life thinking that police would do everything they could to keep him in jail.

Eagle said he watched a friend enter California’s adult prison system as a teenager. Riots in Pelican Bay. He spent several years in isolation after he said he had a wrong connection with the Mexican Mafia. His parents both died when the Eagles were closed, and he didn’t even mention their names, and did not tear them up today.

Eagle said he grew up in a part of Pico-Union, with all his neighbors affiliated with local gang Burlington Locomotives. A young bidder, who was dressed in a “clown”, also met some of the crew.

In the late 1990s, Eagle became a target for detectives, and its infamous LAPD unit was called Crash, abbreviation for community resources targeting street gangsters.

At the time, the Rampart Division of LAPD was the home of crashers who forged reports and civilians, which later triggered a scandal that ended with the U.S. Department of Justice ruling LAPD under a consent form.

In 1996, he was wrongly arrested for a teenager with a gun, Eagle said, and Rafael Perez was the centerpiece of the city wall scandal. Perez later admitted that the report forged the Eagle’s first arrest, according to court records.

But it turns out that it is Eagle’s next running-in with the police.

Court records show that in March 1998, 18th Street gang member Benjamin Urias was shot and killed twice on Burlington Avenue, which police believe was a previous attack on Burlington Locos members. Urias was hospitalized for two days and released, and he told police that the shooter li was walking.

According to his attorney, Megan Baca, he was said to have connections after his gang injury in the shooting and he was said to be locked on the eagle by the fact that he was lied.

The allegations against the Hawk were initially dismissed after Urias failed to show up in a preliminary hearing. But a month later, LAPD homicide detectives Thomas Murrell and Kenneth Wiseman prompted the shooting victims to pick the eagle from the photographic lineup to undone his beliefs.

Records show Urias initially told police that he did not recognize anyone in the roster.

Murrell said to Urias: “Well, that guy in the circle is the one you pointed out,” Murrell said to Urias.

A LAPD spokesman declined to comment. According to BACA, no recording of the validity of the proof of identity has been proposed at Eagle’s trial.

Despite concerns about detective behavior, Hawkeman said he did not immediately order review of other cases involving Murrell and Wiseman. Neither Rampart detectives are part of the crash force.

Murrell denied any misconduct and told Times that he remembered the Eagle’s name because his age group was a suspect in multiple gang homicides at the time.

He did not provide specific details but fired Eagle’s medical alibi, believing that the teenager was “not in the crutch” when police arrested him.

“If he did an ID card and we didn’t cheat, I can tell you…I never did it,” Murrell said. “We did everything with this book.”

An attempt to connect with Wiseman failed.

Eagle said his former attorney, Patrick Lake, did not make an opening statement at the trial or put forward any evidence of Eagle’s absenteeism. When Hawk asked his attorney, Lake joked that he was “for the last one.”

As Eagle’s family was frustrated in the gallery, he said his mother sent him a note that just read “Fraud Him.” The eagle tried to get rid of the lake, but the judge denied his request. The eagle was convicted of murder. Because he was prosecuted as an adult, he faced 25 years of life.

The lake did not respond to a request for comment. Baka said she had a conversation with Lake, who claimed he did not remember the Eagle or the case.

At the time, California prosecutors could file charges directly against teenagers in adult courts, sending hundreds of children to adult prisons every year, such as Pelican Bay and Pelican Bay were injured. The practice was repealed by changes in state law, but Baka said she had encountered too many cases where teenagers stole their lives because they were wrongly convicted and tried as adults.

“It’s creepy, but I think it’s happening all the time,” Baka said. “Many of my clients are teenagers who live their adult lives.”

Eagle said he had been in prison for a long and painful time. He spent six years in quarantine housing, essentially isolated, after Bacca said her client was wrongly labeled as a colleague of the Mexican Mafia. He denied any affiliation with the powerful prison group. Eagle said prison officials have made a logical leap, linking him to a “kite” or prison notes sent by another inmate.

As he grew up after the bar, Eagle began to read casually. His father sent a letter of recommendation. Eagle says he leans towards the Bible.

Even though he knew he hadn’t committed the crime that sent him to jail, Hawk said he still realized his life needed to change.

“I’m 30. My perspective began to change. I began to see the past life of my life was nonsense.” “I began to have a conscience.”

In 2023, after repeated failures to overturn his case by appeals, some of the Eagle’s friends caught the attention of the Baccar and the California Innocence Project, which aims to bring the case to the conviction review department. At the same time, Eagle said, he began exchanging letters with his high school ex-girlfriend, a woman named Monica.

In July, the two huddled each other on the Baka sofa in the lawyer’s Long Beach house, locking their hands. Since then, they have been married and hope to move to Arizona, away from cities and counties that have taken almost everything away.

There are still many things that Eagle can use – he has never driven a car, and the concept of Uber is still weird for him – but Monica said the silver lining of the prison term Eagle should never be used. She wouldn’t marry the one who was sent away years ago.

“He was a brand new person when he came in,” she said.