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Hearing on H ay me Slaying OpensBv HELEN REYNOLDS“I’m hit! My God. I'm hit! sheriff’s detective Donald Haynie cried as a 22-caliber bullet ripped into his chest.He dropped his own 45 semiautomatic pistol, loaded with“dum-dum” bullets, unfired. Bleeding to death. Haynie groped his way through the near-dark house toward the front door, then outside. He collapsed before he reached a nearby unmarked car with a police radio.I can’t breathe. he gasped, apparently realizing he was dying.Inside the house in Fillmore a bewildered old man, awakened after two hours’ sleep, still held the .22 revolver which he had fired into the near-darkness. Ramon Vasquez.77, walked out of his bedroom, adjoining the living room and adjacent to the kitchen. He stubbed his bare foot on the ,45 pistol, picked it up.Through the rear door in the kitchen, a sudden beam froma flashlight picked out the strange iigure: wTinkled old Ramon, who had been sleeping in his long underwear, clutching a gun m each hand.Ramon looked back through the beam of light — at the auburn-bearded face of a youngman dressed in a blue shirt and levis.The bearded man, undercover detective Haskell Chandler, had heard the gunshot and a man's scream: “I’m hit!Who was hit?Inside the kitchen, “I observed just one person” — the old man in underwear, Chandler testified in Ventura Municipal Court Monday. The old man was standing there, looking at me, and he had two guns. .The tragic story of the death of Donald E. Haynie. a veteran law-enforcement officer whose wife is expecting their fifth child, began to emerge Monday in the court hearing to determine whether Ramon Vasquez must stand trial for manslaughter.Council ApprovesPolitical-Siqn LawCandidates running on a law-and-order platform will get a chance to prove it — and do a little police work of their own in Oxnard before the November election.In fact, city councilmen concede that Oxnard’s proposed new ordinance, banning political signs in residential neighborhoods, isn’t likely to be enforced by anybody, unless the candidates do it themselves.“Everybody feels it's desirable,” said Mayor Pro Tem Donald Miller about the ordinance proposed by the planning commission and introduced at the city council meeting Monday. “But when you get down to the practical aspects of how to enforce it,that's another question.New Councilman AI Jewell, who served as Oxnard police chief more than 10 years, saidhe can’t recall a single arrestin city history for violation of a political-sign law.“Many city council candidates themselves have been very much in violation of the sign laws already in existence,” said new council member Jane Tolmach.Pals TradePlaces AfterOjai ArrestDaniel R. Molina, Ojai, found himself changing places with a friend he tried to help Tuesday night after his buddy was arrested on a traffic warrant.Police said Molina walked into the police station to bail out his friend at 5 p.m, only to find himself placed in a cell and his buddy released on bail.Police said the 20-year-old laborer, who lives at 905 Grandview Ave., was wanted on a warrant charging him with possession of stolen property, lie was al.so charged with suspicion of possession of heroin when two capsules containing a substance resembling the drug were found in his pockets while he was being booked, policeMiller said he doesn't blame the city staff for being less than zealous in tearing down nonconforming signs. Unless the staff is merely acting on some private citizen's complaint, Miller pointed out. it is open to complaints of favoring the opposition candidate.And, unless complaining citizens direct them to the offending signs, it would be virtually impossible for city officials to find all violations, “unless they walked around with zoning maps in their pockets. said Mrs. Tolmach. “Just looking at it, how could they be sure the sign’s in a residential zone9”But Miller, Jewell and Mrs. Tolmach — onlv membersT; 0present Monday night — passed the ordinance on first reading to ban all political signs in residential areas and on trees. The law' already bans these signs from utility poles and streetrights-of-way.The new ordinance would require additional action and a second reading June 23 before it could become law on July 23.Maybe — just maybe — candidates trying to outdo each other in speaking for law-and-order will feel honor-bound toobey, city officials suggested.The audience chuckled.Cyce No ise PromptsStudy in CamarilloThe noise from motorcyclesbeing raced bv Camarillo— ii _“When you appeal to the young riders, they just laugh at youThe hearing entered its second day this morning, with Cruz (Cris) Reyna scheduled to testify about the way his friendand partner. Haynie, lay dying in his arms before dawii June 5 — and speaking of a desire to live. Haynie had darted into the house to aidReyna.( handler was the first to testify of three narcotics undercover agents who were with Haynie when they went to the Vasquez home at 828 Edison l.ane. arriving just nine minutes before 1 a.m. Chandler said he and Sgt. Bobby Taylor crawled over the fence and crouched lie-neat h a window—apparently the front bedroom window, where 3!-year-old Salvador Vasquez,his wife Diane and their babywere sleeping. Haynie crouched in bushes just outside the fence. And Reyna walked to the front door to pose as a heroin addict desperately trving to buv a “fix.”“I heard him (Reyna) knock on the front door. A light came on in this (front) bedroom, Chandler said, and he heard someone coming to the front door to talk with Reyna inSpanish.The someone was Ramon’s son, Salvador, suspected ofdealing in heroin and making a sale a week earlier to anundercover agent. On themorning of June 5, almost an hour after midnight, four officers arrived to collect mor» evidence before they made an a rrest ■At the front door, black-bearded Cris Reyna, looking the part of the narcotics user he pretended to be, talked with Salvador. Chandler didn't comprehend what they said in Spanish, he testified, but apparently something went wrong.Suddenly Chandler understoodthe words, in English, under arrest.”Chandler and Taylor ran toward the back of the house to “cover” the rear door. And chandler saw Haynie nmning toward the front of the house to help Revna.“Did you hear a door kicked in (at the front of the house)?” demanded Deputy Public Defender Paul Clinton, who contends that Salvador didn't know Reyna was a police officer and slammed the door in panic on a black-bearded man who drewa gun.Yes. sir. replied (’handler.Prosecutor Peter Kossoris* contends Reyna identified himself as a sheriff’s deoutv andthat’s when Salvador bolted.However it happened. Salvador was suddenly running through the house toward the rear door in the kitchen, withReyna and Haynie in hot pursuit.And Ramon later explained to sheriff's officers that be heard a loud noise, awakened in the bedroom next to the kitchen, and reac hed for a gun on anightstandRamon's story came through the testimony of Sgt. Henry Carrillo, who talked with the old man in county jail.Ramon said he slept within reach of a loaded gun, according to Carrillo, bec ause he had been robbed sometime back. The old man said he heard noise and approaching footsteps and was still scared these people (the robbers) might be returning,” Carrillo“When he stepped away from the tied, the footsteps came closer, and he pointed the gun. . . , fired one shot Ramon, apparently, never saw the man he shot in thedark.Meanwhile, Salvador had run out the back door into the waiting hands of Chandler, whohandcuffed the suspect stillCACHE OF NARCOTICS SEIZED IN OXNARD Officer Jim Latimer weighs marijuana while officer George Pultz looks on.Foot Race, Arrest LeadTo Large Dope SeizureB\ K14 k NIELSENMore than $4,0(K! worth of narcotics was seized Tuesday night with the arrest of a young transient after he lost a foot race with a reserve policeman in Oxnard, police said.The arrest of Teofiio Galabiz Reyes, 20, a laborer, came less than four hours after Oxnard Municipal Court Judge Robert Soares had forfeited his bail and i.ssued a bench warrant for his arrest after he failed to appear for his trial on a narcoticsv mluinbeing under the influence of an opiate. He had been arrested on the charge last February.Officer Jim I,atimer said he and Reserve Officer Eugene Es-peranza were traveling east on Eighth Street about 5:15 p m, when they noticed two men walking hurriedly along the sidewalk near B Street, one carrying a small suitcase.Latimer said as he slowed down the two men bolted down an alley and into the rear yard of a nearby home. The officerirmrmdiMtplv cloniiMt smH Hp andarrest, lie apparently threw it away during the chase.Officer George Pultz retraced the route of the chase and found the suitcase minutes later hidden beneath the low branches of a palm tree at the rear of 816 S. I) St.While inspecting the suitcase,police said, they found Reyes’ wallet inside along with ninecontaining agreen leafy substance resembling marijuana, and eightballoons and a small package,all containing what anneared to** A*dressed in pajama trousers.The old man sat through the hearing listening to the words translated from English into Spanish by court interpreter Victor Segura But Kossoris claims the old man understands enough English to recognize the word police.” And Kossoris called a grocery store owner-clerk to the stand to testify about her English-language conversations with Ramon.Ramon comes into her grocery store about twice a day to make a purchase and chat, testified Mrs. Norma Schell of 634 Island View, Fillmore. “I think he's a very fine gentleman, she said, and enjoys talking with him.She said his memory is slipping — “I think he has become forgetful because he is an elderly gentleman” — but he remembered to wish her well when she recently was remarried after widowhood, and he introduced himself to her new husband in the store.Strong EvidenceStrongest evidence for the prosecution came from a neighbor, Mrs. May Carter, whase home is separated from the Vasquez house only by an 80-foot vacant lot. She awakened in her bedroom, on the side bythe Vasquez house.She heard the shout — “We’re police officers!” before she heard a loud noise “either like glass breaking, or a toy gundropping to the ground.The noise, Kossoris contends, was the gunshot which killed Haynie. And if a neighbor heardthe shout, “We’re police officers,” before the gunshot. Kossoris asked, why didn't Ramon Vasquez hear it?But Ramon told Detective Carrillo that he had no idea there were police around the house until he heard his son Salvador, handcuffed in the back yard, shouting: “They’re police officers! They're going to kill you. Throw the gun out!Ramon threw the .22 out the rear door, where detectives later retrieved it.Meanwhile, Chandler testified, he had left Salvador — ironically a former schoolmate — with Det, Taylor and run back toward the front of the house to try' to find out who had shouted I'm hit.”He thought the voice had been Reyna's, Chandler said, but he saw' Haynie lying bleeding on the ground. Then Reyna arrived.Blocks TestimonyHaynie lay dying in Reyna's arms, while Chandler frantically ran back and forth to the police car radio — calling first for an ambulance, then a resuscitator, then any doctor. Help came too late. Haynie was dead on arrival at Sania Paula Memorial Hospital at 2:24 a.m.Also taking the stand Monday was a federal immigration officer, Floyd Chandler ot Oxnardi apparently no relation to thedetective). Clinton succeeded in blocking the border patrol inspector's testimony about immigration records as hearsay.But Kossoris gol Ramon’s“green card” introduced as evidence — apparently to prove that Ramon was an alien in possession of a firearm.Even if Judge Richard Love clears Ramon of manslaughter, the old man could be bound over to Superior Court on the firearm charge. Conviction allows a penalty up to 15 years in prison — as severe as the penalty for involuntary man-c'tatfflrhtaa*
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