As the murder trial of National Guardsman Scott Ansman nears for allegedly whacking to death his pregnant girlfriend last year, the victim’s brother asserts that Culver City police acted with racial prejudice in mind because the defendant is white and his sister was black.
The cause of the fatal dispute on Aug. 24, ’07, between JoAnn Crystal Harris, 29 years old, and Sgt. Ansman, then 34, remains clouded, but Ms. Harris’s brother, Gerald Bennett, has his own ideas.
“The evidence against Ansman is overwhelming,” said Mr. Bennett, who is both grieving and angry. “I don’t see how this could help being an open-and-shut case. But it sure doesn’t look that way now.
“When the police came to the National Guard Armory — remember, they had been warned a couple weeks before that he was trying to recruit someone to kill or help kill my sister — and Ansman confessed right there.
Skirting the Department
“Afterward, the police allowed him to shower, change his clothes, and then asked him to come down to the Police Dept., and then they arrested him there. Wow. I want you to know I stay away from the Culver City Police Dept.
“Not long after JoAnn’s murder, my sister Deborah went down to the Police Dept. with her daughter, and they said they had a real bad time down there. The police realize they dropped the ball. They made a big, big mistake after they were warned two weeks earlier what was going to happen.
“The police realize now, ‘We made the biggest mistake in the department’s whole history by not doing anything.’ What they’re doing now is damage control. ‘Damage control,’ for them, is to say, ‘Hey, either he didn’t do this the way he said he did it’ or ‘they didn’t do this.’ They are trying to, like, remove themselves from this situation because it is a very horrific situation.
“It is something that they could have stopped. But they chose to do nothing. As police officers, you have the duty to warn.
Contrasting with Celebrity Treatment
“I was recently looking at a John Gotti story. John Gotti had a contract out on his life. Federal agents went to him and said, ‘Even though you are under federal indictment, and even though we plan to put you in jail for the rest of your life, we have information that there is a contract out on your life. As officers of the law, we have to warn you and let you know that your life is in jeopardy. If you need us to protect you in any kind of way, we will do that.’
“Gotti told them ‘Hey, I’m fine. I appreciate you warning me.’
“He got the warning because the federal agents saw that as their job. Culver City police never have had to deal with anything like this ever in their history.
“For them to say, after receiving the warning that her life was in danger, that ‘we have to go out and find this woman,’ that wasn’t necessary. They knew where to find him. They could have gone to him and said, ‘We have certain information. We need you to refrain, whatever it is you were trying to do, we need you to stop.’”
Mr. Bennett said that his siblings, his sisters Suzette and Deborah, share his feelings.
The Next Move
The family’s only option at this stage, said Mr. Bennett, is to hire an attorney and file charges over the failure to warn Ms. Harris. “I feel my sister’s federal rights were violated because the Culver City police did not warn her. If you place a 9-1-1 call, the police will come out and investigate. For the police to receive this information from a (fellow National Guardsman) who knew this guy, who said, ‘Hey, I know this guy. I work with this guy. I really believe he is going to do this,’ and then do nothing, that’s not right.”
The District Attorney’s office announced months ago that when Sgt. Ansman is brought up on two counts of murder, probably next month or in January, it will not seek the death penalty but rather a life sentence without possibility of parole.