Mourning for slain officer, Indio cop shot fleeing man

A veteran Indio police officer who fatally shot a fleeing cyclist two years ago told investigators he was reeling from the murder of a fellow policeman, which made him more likely to use deadly force when he felt threatened, newly released law enforcement documents show.

Officer Alex Franco shot Alejandro Rendon, 23, twice — including at least once from behind — as the Indio man fled from a routine traffic stop on Valentine's Day 2013. Rendon never brandished a weapon, but police found a blue-handled kitchen knife on his body after he was shot.

One day prior, Franco had attended the funeral of Riverside Police Officer Michael Crain, a victim of serial killer Chris Dorner, an ex-LAPD officer who targeted cops. When Franco returned to patrol the next day, he had what investigators called a heightened sense of "officer safety."

"I know people die," Franco told investigators, describing his mindset in the moment that he shot Rendon. "We're all cops, and we're all the same, but I knew (Crain). I knew how he worked, and it made it a little bit more tangible. I've worked where people on my shift do not come back the next day. ... That's part of the job. That just goes with the job. But this was fresh. This was, you know, 24 hours ago where I watched him get, you know, eulogized and buried."

Although Rendon was killed more than two years ago, the fact that Franco was mourning Crain at the time of the shooting has never been made public until now. This detail comes from a Desert Sun analysis of more than 500 pages of law enforcement documents, obtained exclusively by the newspaper through the cooperation of the Riverside County District Attorney's Office. The documents were released this month.

The Desert Sun's analysis also includes hundreds of pages of documents from a lawsuit filed by the Rendon family, who successfully sued the city of Indio for $1.9 million in 2014. Lawsuit documents reveal that Franco was caught lying on a polygraph test while interviewing for a job with the Indio Police Department in 2007, and that he was previously denied employment by numerous other California police agencies. Attorneys used this information to argue that Franco is untrustworthy.

The DA's office cleared Franco in the Rendon shooting.

The revelation that Franco was mourning a murdered officer comes at a time when countless other police officers, in police departments across the nation, are facing a similar loss. After Dorner's shooting spree in 2013, the number of killings rose dramatically in 2014, nearly doubling to 51. This year, assassination plots in New York and Dallas have left many officers feeling more besieged than ever before, a national policing expert said. On street corners across America, growing officer fear could lead to deadly consequences, not unlike the shooting in Indio two years ago.

"When officers are targeted in very high-profile cases – from the Dorner case to the New York case where officers were ambushed and executed in their car — it leads police all across the country to be more concerned for their own personal safety," said Jim Bueermann, president of the Police Foundation, a law enforcement think tank. "I think it's incumbent on individual departments to stress that officers still have to do the job in a rational and thoughtful manner. The overwhelming majority of people they have contact with do not intend to do them harm."

Bueermann is a former Redlands police chief, who led the department from 1998 to 2011. During an interview with The Desert Sun, Bueermann said the Indio shooting is also indicative of a nationwide need for increased focus on police officers' psychological health.

He said police departments must foster a culture where officers are unafraid to admit they are emotionally compromised. No one blinks if a doctor or an airline pilot says they are too distraught to work, Bueermann said, but police — who face devastating sights and dangerous confrontations on a regular basis — still operate in a "macho" world, where psychological trauma is rarely discussed, and time off is often frowned upon.

Bueermann said he doesn't know any police department with a policy of debriefing officers after officer funerals, but "good sergeants" keep an eye on their mourning officers anyway.

"If you have never been to a police funeral, they are very symbolic, and very emotional, like a military funeral in many ways," Bueermann said. "It reminds you of how dangerous the job can be, and that's probably the most important time for sergeants to look at their people in briefing and talk to them.

"Wouldn't we rather an airline pilot say to his boss 'I don't think I should be flying today?'" Bueermann said. "As a passenger, I would much rather that pilot stay home and put someone else in his seat. Because the consequences can be phenomenal. … But do we give officers the freedom to privately say, without any stigma attached, that their head is not in the game that day?"

If there was ever an event that rattled police, it was Dorner's killing spree.

Dorner, 33, a fired LAPD officer who swore revenge against all police, targeted officers and their loved ones, killing four people in nine days in early February 2013. Police responded with a statewide manhunt, and emotions were so tense that officers in Los Angeles and Torrance mistakenly fired at innocent bystanders who were briefly mistaken for Dorner.

Dorner's spree ended on Feb. 12, when he committed suicide during a standoff with an army of police in Big Bear. One day later, about 8,000 mourners gathered in Riverside to say goodbye to Crain, 34, a SWAT member and father of two young children.

Franco, who had worked alongside Crain years before, was among the crowd.

When questioned for this story, the Indio Police Department would not say if it was a mistake to allow Franco to return to patrol one day after Crain's funeral. The department issued a written statement that said it partners with an outside company — The Counseling Team International — to offer help to officers who are struggling with depression, stress or trauma.

Police Chief Richard Twiss was unavailable to be interviewed for this story, an Indio Police Department spokesman said.

Officer Franco did not respond to interview requests.

Franco has used deadly force once before, when he opened fire on an armed teenage suspect in 2010. The suspect, who had a .22-caliber rifle and was riding in a stolen vehicle, was captured but unhurt.

Franco recently made headlines for positive reasons. Earlier this month, Franco was given a "California Hero Award" by Mothers Against Drunk Driving for his staunch DUI enforcement. This was the second year in a row Franco had won the award.

'He's going to attack me'

Franco has previously declined to discuss Rendon's death, but statements he made to investigators in the wake of the shooting are now public.

The documents released by the D.A.'s office include a transcript of an interview with Franco conducted by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department about six hours after Rendon was shot. The transcript offers the first-ever glimpse into what Franco was thinking when he pulled the trigger.

In the interview, Franco describes how he became convinced that Rendon was going to attack him because the fleeing cyclist was not trying hard enough to escape. Franco said several times that Rendon didn't flee like he was "supposed to," and described how simple movements — like a glance backwards or standing up — were interpreted as signs of a looming attack.

The police pursuit that led to Rendon's death began about 11:30 p.m. Franco was driving east on Miles Avenue, in a neighborhood in Indio, when the officer spotted Rendon riding west on a bicycle with no headlight.

Franco decided to give Rendon a ticket, so he pulled a U-turn and began following the cyclist. Rendon, who had marijuana and methamphetamine in his system, and a pending warrant in a burglary case, began to flee. Rendon had a previous conviction for shoplifting, and was facing misdemeanor charges for trespassing and resisting arrest in a third court case.

Franco said Rendon then began to pedal faster, as if trying to escape, but not as fast as he possibly could. Rendon repeatedly looked over his shoulder at the cop car behind him.

Franco believed Rendon was "sizing him up."

"He's supposed to get (off) his bike and stop, or get on his bike and ride as fast as possible and don't look back. He didn't do either," Franco said. "I'm thinking, great, this is going to be — this is going to be one of those times where it's going to be a fight. He's going to attack me. He is going to do something to me."

You can read a Sheriff's Department summary of Franco's interview, and the entire interview transcript, below. Some documents may be difficult to read, but these are the clearest copies available to the public.

As the slow-speed chase continued, Rendon cut through the driveway of the McIntosh Pharmacy, rode through the grass at Miles Park, then hooked back onto Miles Avenue, now heading east. Franco followed in his patrol car.

Soon after, Rendon struck a curb and either fell or jumped off his bike, landing on the ground near the roadside, close to the bottom of a chain-link fence. Franco pulled over his car, exited the driver's-side door and fired six shots, striking Rendon twice. Rendon was about a car's length away.

One bullet hit the front of Rendon's abdomen, lodging in his pelvis. Another bullet pierced his buttock, bursting out of his chest. Rendon climbed over the chain-link fence, then collapsed in the empty lot on the other side. Minutes later, medics rushed Rendon to Eisenhower Medical Center, where he was declared dead.

Franco said he shouted for Rendon to "get down" off the fence, but he can't remember if he did so before or after he opened fire. Franco said he fired at Rendon because the cyclist turned to face him as he stood up from the ground, moving his hands away from his waistband, as if he was drawing and pointing a gun that he didn't have.

"He's supposed to lay — lay down, or give up and run as fast as possible out of there, but he chose to get up and come around like he's going to shoot me," Franco said during the post-shooting interview. "I got kids and a wife, so I'm not going to get — I'm not going to die or get hurt."

Although Franco said Rendon turned toward him aggressively, attorneys for the Rendon family have argued otherwise.

During the family's lawsuit, two expert witnesses — Dr. Michael Baden, a retired medical examiner and forensic pathologist, and Ronald Scott, a retired ballistics expert from the Massachusetts State Police — said Rendon's bullet wounds reveal he was shot from behind and below, likely while climbing over the chain-link fence.

Scott filed an independent report on the shooting, saying that Franco's version of the shooting simply could not be true. Rendon was not facing the cop who shot him, Scott said.

"The combination of Officer Franco's location when shooting in relation to where he alleges Mr. Rendon was standing produces a result which makes it a practical impossibility for either of these gunshot wounds to have occurred," Scott wrote.

The Riverside County Sheriff's Department, which conducted a criminal investigation of the shooting, has said in a statement they did not find probable cause that Franco had committed any crime, and that their findings "corroborated" Franco's version of the shooting.

Failed polygraphs, prior theft

Expert witnesses were not the only source that cast doubt on Franco's truthfulness.

Documents filed in the Rendon family lawsuit also revealed that Franco failed his polygraph test while applying for a job with the Indio Police Department in 2007, and was turned away from job openings at seven other Southern California police agencies, at least in part because of other failed polygraph tests.

Family attorneys argued that these failed polygraphs cast doubt on Franco's credibility, and were evidence that he had lied in the past. A judge ultimately barred the polygraphs from the jury trial, but discussion of the failed polygraphs remains in the lawsuit's public record, which was included in The Desert Sun's analysis of the Rendon shooting.

Franco's problems with polygraphs began in the '90s, as the soon-to-be officer was denied employment with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and police departments in Irvine, San Bernardino, Long Beach, Downey, Hemet and Pomona. It is unknown why each of these agencies rejected Franco, but court documents make it clear that at least one rejection was the result of a failed polygraph test.

Eventually, Indio hired Franco. He worked in Indio until 1997, then moved to the Riverside Police Department, where he worked for 10 years.

Then, in 2007, Franco reapplied at the Indio Police Department, but failed a polygraph during the application process. During the test, Franco said he had never committed theft or shoplifting, but after he failed, the officer admitted that he was caught stealing food while working at a Vons supermarket in the 1980s, before he became a cop. Franco was not prosecuted for the Vons theft.

You can read excerpts from Franco's deposition, in which he discusses his failed polygraph and Von's theft, below. The remainder of this deposition has been sealed by a federal judge.

Despite Franco's admission — and his failed polygraph test — the Indio Police Department still rehired the officer. In court, attorneys for the Police Department argued that Franco's theft occurred in the 1980s.

"If anything, these admissions only demonstrate how honest Officer Franco is and has been with the Indio Police Department," attorneys wrote.

Reporter Brett Kelman can be reached by phone at (760) 778-4642, by email at brett.kelman@desertsun.com, or on Twitter @TDSbrettkelman.