48 Hours - The Investigators

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

In three separate reports, "48 Hours" follows the work of police crime scene investigators, including a profile of a former criminalist; the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office investigation of the brutal murder of the Ruiz family; and the fatal shooting of 39-year-old actor Anthony Dwain Lee by Tarriel Hopper, a police officer responding to a noise complaint at a Halloween party. "48 Hours" correspondents Richard Schlesinger and Harold Dow report. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 5/24/2025. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+.

Tonight, a special 48 hours mystery. When I go into any scene, it's me versus the bad guy. And I know that I'm smarter, and I know that I'm better equipped. Whose fingerprints are all over the hit TV show CSI? People like puzzles and mysteries. Here's a clue. This single mother of three has solved hundreds of murders murders as a real-life crime scene investigator.

Liz, tell us how it's done. Richard Schlesinger is on the trail of CSI's secret weapon. She does everything for us. From the pronunciation of words to explaining the science. Action. And... Liz is one of the best crime scene investigators I've ever worked with. Sergeant Larry Mitchell is still working the streets.

Damn. Pretty bad scene. We can be here for a couple days. Still working the real CSI that Liz left behind. Liz left behind. Got whole family. Torture, murder. Not your typical crime scene.

This chair was moved from the dining room into the bedroom. Catching this killer comes down to one critical clue. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. A special 48 hours mystery. The Investigators. What we're talking about here, this is what figures in it's like. We realize that it's not a straight up hanging. Okay.

In a small office hidden in the hills just outside Los Angeles. The body was pitched backwards over the railing. A murder mystery is unfolding. What other forensics do we have? We can tell from rope forensics that the knot was tied by somebody who was right-handed, so we're ruling him out as a suspect. But these aren't detectives. Nice.

I like it. They're television writers, and for them... This is really good. This is really good. Murder comes easy. There's a dead dwarf hanging from an upper balcony. Who are you? Who are they?

The number one show on television, CSI, on a familiar network, CBS. They're a band of crime-solving scientists who have made geek the new chic. Lake grid in this line here. And made heroes out of people like... On one of our close-up CSI shots. Liz Devine. I've been able to tap into a creative side of me that I didn't know I had. I didn't know I had.

And that's been kind of interesting. All right, here we go, Mike. Perseal up. Liz is a single mother of three. She worked for 15 years with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as a real-life crime scene investigator, a criminalist. Before becoming the technical advisor for CSI. I really always thought I would be in law enforcement.

I always did. I never thought I'd do anything but that. So to make a switch like that, it's very exciting stuff. Let's clear, guys. Here we go. She does everything for us. I mean, we had to have someone around all the time when we first started out to make sure that we knew what we were doing, that we were doing it right. Let's roll, rolling and roll, and rolling.

Action. First, two exhausts his appeals and get an execution date. How do you feel about it? William Peterson and Marg Helgenberger, the stars of CSI, both rely on Liz, to make them look like scientists. Cut print, that was very nice. From the pronunciation of words to explaining the science, to the wealth of experience that she's got.

Liz, tell us how it's done. Well, I was just saying that... In just two years, Liz has earned the title, Executive Story Editor. She spent most of her adult life developing clues. Now she develops stories. There's no polite way to ask this. Do you feel like you've sold out?

Gosh, I hope not. I did 15 years of forensics, and it's a hard thing to do every day. You're dealing with people on the worst days of their lives. And it's been nice to work in a different environment. Action. The popularity of CSI has led to a nationwide interest in forensic science, a largely unappreciated field about his glamorous as an autopsy.

Until now. Cut, print it. You know, a lot of times it's just when you're in the store and people come up and go, you know, my daughter's going, majoring in criminology now because, of your show. You guys got some toys. It's not a toy, O'Reilly. It's like a supercharged lint remover.

Only it lifts footprints. Possibly our killers. People like puzzles and mysteries. And I think the reason our show has been so successful is because we're showing them the science or we're making it cool. You can cast those, those microscope. To borrow a Las Vegas term, she is the ace in the hole.

She really is the backbone of CSI. CSI. That's cool. CSI is the brainchild of Anthony Zyker, a rookie writer from Las Vegas and a pair of Hollywood professionals. Then cut into the odds. Executive producers Carol Mendelson. Why are we not using that? And Ann Donahue. We're enthralled by murder. Other people look away. We keep looking and that's how we get our scripts. We keep looking. Forensic science is it, it's heart, a mystery. You solve a mystery. And Liz's job when she was a CSI and Liz's job as a writer is to say these are the facts. This is the mystery. Let's solve it. That's cut at autopsy.

Liz Devine has had ample opportunity to acquire her particular expertise. How many murders do you think you've investigated? Somewhere between 750 and 800, I think. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Several episodes of CSI have been based on murders Liz has worked on, including one of her most brutal and challenging cases. That was one that,

haunts me to this day. Mother's Day, 1995. Paul Karazi was found covered with blood in a parking lot. His ex-girlfriend, Sonia Salinas, and his mother were dead nearby. His two-year-old son was uninjured in the backseat of his car. Karazi claimed they had been robbed. But what Liz and her colleagues found at the crime scene told a very different story. Paul Karasi and his girlfriend, Donnelly, together, planned a murder.

and they brutally stabbed these two women and left them for dead and killed them and did it all in front of his own son. In the CSI version of this crime, investigators pour a casting material into the victim's wounds to determine the shape of the murder weapon. Interesting idea, except for one problem.

That's not possible. I lost that battle in the writer's room. What was the argument? The argument is you can't do that. Here we go. But there was one critical piece of evidence that did solve the case. What does that look like to you? That looks like a handprint.

Both on TV and in reality, a handprint that indicated one victim put up a fight. It was with her left hand, which had been badly injured by defense wounds, that she grabbed the left side of his shirt and clutched it, and we could actually match the defense wounds with her injuries. Police think Karazi committed the murders because his ex-executive. because his ex-girlfriend wanted money for child support. Liz worked on this investigation for three years, and it finally paid off.

Paul Karazi received the death penalty. But Liz found she also had a price to pay. For 15 years, I did that. And for 15 years, it affected the way I looked at my children and people in my life. How did it affect the way you looked at those folks? I'm a lot more skeptical and a lot more suspicious. I mean, I've got blood for my kids in my freezer, because if anything happens to them, I want to be able to identify them.

I mean, that's not normal, and I know that. But that's what this business did to me. All right, let's clear, let's shoot. While Liz is still dealing with crime scenes on a daily basis, at the end of the day, there's one big difference. You see people get up from the autopsy table and wipe off the makeup. Just a piece of glass that's going to come out here? And you go home. You know, you're making a mask.

Yes, Rachel. It's okay. Now, the only crimes Liz has to solve... Mom burns some. ...are her own. The Shamrock survived, but that's about it, you guys. All right, Mama. This is the crime scene right here.

I've seen a lot of negativeness. Why don't you do a flower? So I'm trying to bring more positive things into my life and surround my kids with that, and I think that's important. But the life Liz Devine has left behind goes on without her. You're going to take a look at this. It's got it all over the walls in here. Damn.

Look at this. Jesus, pretty bad scene. This is not footage from the TV show. There was a struggle in the doorway. It's the real thing. It appears as though we have four victims who have been tortured. And the real CSIs are about to come face to face. No prints on the window.

This was negative. We can be here for a couple of days. With a mystery that will take all their skills to solve. This is all blood. Smeared blood. Next. They've all been tied up. They've all been tortured.

They've all been murdered. This is the real thing. It may look like a TV show, but it's the scene of one of the worst homicides in Los Angeles County in five years. I'm going to need another one of our crime scene investigators out here. It's not a drama, but it couldn't be more dramatic. You got any forced entry? There's two prints and blood in the doorway there. Okay.

Start laying off this evidence. For the next 48 hours, these men and women, real-life crime scene investigators with the L.A.'s Department crime lab will struggle with a mystery that will take all their skills to solve. No prints on the window. Who killed this family? And why? Mario, it was a long shot. Sergeant Larry Mitchell will lead the investigation. It appears as though we have four victims who have been tortured.

We have the little eight-year-old girl who has been tortured and sexually assaulted. It never ceases to amaze me what people do to each other. each other. Liz Devine, who worked closely with Mitchell before moving on as the technical advisor for CSI, has seen this kind of crime before. These are things that are just shocking and horrible, but they happen. John, what are we going to do? With young grandchildren of his own, the 56-year-old Mitchell might well have a hard time keeping this from getting personal. Wari, have you shot any exterior shot yet? But 19 years of working crime scenes has taught him to forget his emotions. and rely on his instincts.

What are the first things you look for when you get on a crime scene? Anything that you see that's out of place. Things that are out of place that maybe someone grabbed, maybe someone touched to give you a fingerprint, maybe give you some DNA that can lead you to a suspect. Take me in D.C. But even a calloused Sergeant Mitchell finds it tough to stay focused on the job at hand when he gets his first look inside the Ruiz house.

You're going to take a look at this. Blood spatter all over the walls in here. Damn. Look at this. Footprint on here. Jesus, it's a pretty bad scene. We can be here for a couple days. I haven't seen very many crime scenes as violent as this one. There's just a lot of violence and a lot of anger in this crime. Did the family know the killer or killers?

Right now, detectives aren't ruling anything out. At this point, the Sheriff's Department knows one thing for sure. Sometime between Friday and Saturday morning in this Los Angeles suburb, 38-year-old Miguel Ruiz, his wife Maritza Trejo, his grandmother, Anna Louisa Martinez, and his eight-year-old daughter, Jasmine Ruiz, were murdered. But that's all investigators know. Clear this place, get all you photographs. Okay.

House is a wreck. They pretty much ransacked the house. We got blood everywhere on the walls, on the floor. It looks as though they tried to maybe clean the place up a little bit. A lot of work you do. The 11 years or so that I've worked on a homicide, I've never seen a scene like this. This is like incredibly brutal, incredibly hard to take really even for somebody that sees this stuff every day. Detective Ray Peavy is a lieutenant in the Homicide Bureau.

Take a look in here, Mitch. You're a little kid. We all have kids and you look down this little eight-year-old girl and realize that a day or so ago she was just a normal a little girl. Right. I got two family members who just walked up. Jessman. That was my baby.

Olga Ruiz lost most of her family that morning, including her brother Miguel. They were a great family, a working class family. My brother worked out of his house. Miguel was a stay-at-home father who had a small business building computers. He was the best father any child could ever have, and the best brother any sister could ever have. And I'm going to miss him. And I'm going to miss them. Crime scene investigators know most killers make mistakes.

This is where they get caught. We are looking for fingerprint evidence. It may not be as sexy as a Hollywood set, but this lab is one of the best equipped in the country and with good reason. They investigate over 70,000 cases each year. We can get some prints. You guys know how these cases go.

Prince is what's going to give us a suspect. The crime lab will pull out all the stops on this one, photographing every piece of evidence, analyzing blood and fluids, DNA testing, and fingerprint processing and identification, sifting through the haystack, looking for a needle. A possible fingerprint.

Oh, that's nice. That's the challenge that I would always bring in to a crime scene myself when I would go. I know there's evidence here, and my job is to find it. My job is to find it. The blood drops are concentrated on this panel. At the crime scene, the investigators are still at it, combing every inch of the house. I don't know if you can see all the tiny little dots.

That's actually blood spatter. In real time, unlike prime time, it takes much more time than one hour to solve a crime. We got spatter all on here. It's a painstakingly slow and meticulous process. We're sure that they won't kill here, right? Oh, they were most certainly not. And a long day of work. Okay, her throat is slit.

Is turning into what will be an even longer night. His throat appears cut pretty bad. In the real world, this is a very stressful job. You're dealing with a lot of trauma. You're dealing with innocent people who have been brutally murdered. You deal with the pressure of knowing that you only have one chance to process this scene. And once you're done, you can't go back. Seeing people in their own homes murdered, it's a harsh thing to get used to.

For a long time, I would hardly ever look at the victim's faces. Why not? It made it too real. Twelve hours after the investigation began, the bodies of the Ruiz family are finally removed from the house. But the investigation has barely begun. The mystery of why these four people were so brutal. There is one piece of evidence still inside the crime scene that will break this case, and it's right under the investigator's noses.

We're just going to shut the scene down for the night, get some breaths, kind of refresh, and come back again in in the morning. I read about it this morning. I read this article, and it all just comes back. Sunday morning's headlines are a chilling reminder for Liz Devine. It's tragic, you know, family wiped out. This is the world she left behind. When she traded life as a real crime scene investigator...

I did a lot of cases with multiple victims. And went Hollywood. Liz is one of the best crime scene investigators I've ever worked with. Sergeant Larry Mitchell and his team of investigators from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Crime Lab are now entering their second long day of work on this case. So it's a slow process. But they haven't made a dent in the mountain of evidence left behind. by the killer of the Ruiz family.

Because one thing about a crime scene, you only have one time to get it right. There's a certain amount of adrenaline rush to that. It was invigorating, and so I do miss that. There's blood spatter from the door, from the base, all the way up to about six feet. The Ruiz house looks like something out of a horror movie at first. But a closer inspection reveals what appears to be blood on the walls is, in fact, something else entirely. Not your typical crime scene. There is pancake syrup, Italian dressing, barbecue sauce. There's a thing up here.

It's all kinds of different food products spread all over this room. It's a bizarre discovery, but Sergeant Mitchell thinks whoever did this had investigators like him in mind. That's something that you would normally see at a crime scene. It makes you stop and think. Now maybe that was why these things were done to disguise a motive. It's a battle of wits between the killer and and the investigators.

27 and 40 inches. And I go into any scene, it's me versus the bad guy. And I know that I'm smarter, and I know that I'm better equipped. And it's just whether or not he's lucky enough that somehow I don't find the evidence. You ever met a smart killer? Not too many. But this is a complicated crime scene. Investigators are working in teams.

The identification team gathers fingerprint evidence and documents the scene. The biology team analyzes and interprets blood evidence. In the presence of blood, the clear solution turns purple. That's very impressive. 30 hours into the investigation,

one tiny detail catches the eye of an investigator. There's a chair out of place. This chair was moved from the dining room into the bedroom. Did the killer move the chair? If so, did he? he leave some trace behind.

To look for prints, investigators use a high-tech gadget called an electrostatic dustlifter. Electric charge field will go on the opposite end. See how it's starting to suck down through electrostatic? And then all you just need to do is just kind of roll it out all the way through. Finally, investigators find what they're looking for. It's that needle in the haystack. prints. Not fingerprints, shoe prints. Best highest quality one is here. Yeah, that's similar to the bloody shoe prints that are in the bathroom on the north side of the house. That, that shoe, if we find it,

we can, we can make a conclusive match with that, with those marks. This is, that's excellent. It's imperative to get it photographed as soon as you can. With photos of the shoe prints in hand, We find shoes that match these footprints, and we got the killer. Detective Ray Peavy sends his homicide detectives to interview neighbors, including one person they know, has had a run-in with the Ruiz family. As we speak, we've got investigators going out to a house nearby. In this house, just around the corner, they find their suspect, wearing a pair of shoes with souls similar to the prints lifted from the chair.

The shoes were taken to our crime lab. The shoes were brought in. Bob Kyle is, among other things, I'll handle the evidence. An expert in shoe prints. I have the actual evidence item here, and I turned it over, and almost immediately I could see that we had potential for the correct shoes. Why? What can you see here?

I can see right away that there's a cut that runs across these three elements. And what does that correspond to in this photo? And that cut corresponds to this area on the shoe print. How certain are you? 100%? You're 100% certain? Yes, there's no doubt in my mind that these prints came from this pair of shoes to the exclusion of all other shoes in the world.

That was good enough for detectives. Less than 48 hours after the murders, they arrested 23-year-old Alfonso Morales. The footprint was crucial. It did make the hair stand on the back of my neck. I knew at that point I'm going to have a hand in this, and this person's going to answer. When the crime scene investigators searched Morales' house, they turned up even more evidence. We believe the contents inside this bin belonged to the victims that were murdered. Morales, it turns out, not only live nearby, he occasionally helped Miguel Ruiz with his computer business.

Investigators think the two men had a falling out when Morales was told to stay away from Ruiz's daughters. CS1E is an NEC flat screen monitor. It appears to be a number of small blood stains on the screen. A lot of stains here on the sides of the keys and on the side. In the midst of all the evidence, reddish stains on the cord. Only an expert can comprehend. Reddish stain on cord cam positive for blood.

There's one thing they found at the scene. Anyone can understand. A camera with photos of the Ruiz family taken just days before the murder. So in this one awful day, you lost your brother, your niece, your grandmother. And my sister-in-law. Miguel Ruiz's sister, Olga. How would you like them to be remembered? Just a typical family who loved each other very much. A crowd of their neighbors turned out to honor the Ruiz family and share their grief. One neighbor was absent. Case of people who is Alfonso Ignacio Morales.

Since we last brought you this story in October, Alfonso Morales pled not guilty at his preliminary hearing. He remains in jail waiting for his trial and could face the death penalty. Hey man, you guys are a great job. So all you guys have got to weekend off. But even as they worked the Ruiz case, other work was already piling up.

It was a bloody four days in L.A. We had 17 homicides. Even for us, that's quite a run in such a short amount of time. You know, when you see multiple people massacred like that, it's very difficult. And everybody has their own way to cope with it. And that's part of the skill of being an investigator. Everybody in this unit is here because they want to be here and this is what they want to do. They love the challenge, working these difficult scenes.

They love the opportunity to put their skills to work. And we're fine. We're ready for the next one. Tucked away on a narrow street in the exclusive Benedict Canyon section of Los Angeles sits a slightly run-down mansion, known locally, as the castle. It was here two years ago that a Halloween party suddenly turned deadly. A fatal shooting that still haunts people today

who wonder how could this have happened. If you look outside at the position that someone would be firing, a weapon, that's an awfully elevated angle. Tom Streed is here trying to figure that out. This is a crime scene photograph. A former homicide detective turned forensic investigator. You ever seen a shooting where the officers repaired all of the gunshot holes?

Streed specializes in crime scene reconstruction. With the track through the torso, you've got an entrance and an exit site. It's his job to put all the pieces of evidence together and come up with the theory of how this is. fatal shooting occurred. It's about getting to the truth of the matter. It could be Street's biggest case. It's certainly the most publicized. Los Angeles officials are investigating a weekend shooting. The LAPD is under fire for the shooting death this past weekend. There was gunfire. The victim? A 39-year-old

actor named Anthony Dwayne Lee. The shooter? A third-year Los Angeles police officer, Terrell Hopper. The officer believes that he was in danger. The police quickly defended Hopper's actions, calling the shooting justified. But was it? The incident began innocently enough in the early morning hours of October 28, 2000. Hopper and his partner responded to a routine radio call. A neighbor's complaint about loud noise coming from

the Castle Halloween party. Upon arriving, the officers entered the house and began searching for the owner. They proceeded down some steps that they described into the bar room area. At this point, they turned to the right. They came up this series of three steps and then moved down this direction.

The officer states that he shined a flashlight through a door paint. Witnesses on the inside said that they saw a light but they couldn't determine who was shining the flashlight. One of the partygoers in that room with his back turned towards Officer Hopper was Anthony Lee. He looks around and spots the flashlight and sticks his hand into his waistband and starts to pull the weapon.

And at this point, Officer Hopper drew his weapon and began firing. Within seconds, Officer Hopper, seen here in an LAPD recreation of the shooting, fired all nine rounds in his semi-automatic handgun. Four of the shots hit Lee, killing him on the spot. Then a tragic discovery. The gun that Lee was allegedly pointing at the officer turned out to be a replica of a 357 magnum. A movie prop worn by Lee as part of his Halloween costume.

Having him gone, there's just a really big piece that's missing in my life. Lee's younger sister, Tina. I remember that was the first thing I thought of when I realized he was dead was, oh God, who do I call now? There's no one I can call now. now. Lee was a hardworking actor whose career was beginning to heat up. He'd had a small role in Liar Liar with Jim Carrey. Miranda, I won't lie. Then we'll just have to find someone who will. And regularly appeared in television dramas. You think this family being black means I'm not

interested in queer in this case? I think when it comes to black on black violence, people are all too ready to shake their heads and accept it. He was really talented, really smart, really ambitious. He was a very good, very, very good brother. Tina has never been satisfied with the official police version of her brother's death. They've always made statements or claims that somehow my brother was to blame for this happening. Tina's doubts became even stronger after the autopsy. The autopsy report is probably the first time I really knew that he was shot in the back. Shot in the back four times. Yes. We're talking about four shots that struck this individual in the back side of his body.

Three times in the upper portion of his back and one time in the back of the head. That's an awful long time presenting his back to the officer. It was presented by LAPD that the officer had to do it. The individual not only pulled the gun but also pointed it directly at the officer. And then to hear that he was shot in the back really raised a lot of questions in my mind.

Questions which prompted Tina to hire a lawyer and not just any lawyer. This is a case that cries out for some sort of justice, it seems to me. Johnny Cochran represents Tina in the multi-million dollar wrongful death suit she's filed against the LAPD and Officer Hopper. Now, nobody's saying this particular officer Hopper got out, went to work that evening and said, I'm going to go out and shoot somebody. But he was negligent. He violated his own rules.

The thing that really probably troubles me as much as anything, the LAPD found this shooting within policy. In fact, separate investigations by the LAPD and the district attorney's office concluded that Officer Hopper was justified in his use of deadly force. No criminal charges were filed against him. I think they said something he may need a little more training. He needs a lot more training. Sincinctly stated, a man at a costume party inside of a room who can't see outside is shot by a person who doesn't identify himself.

So what do we do? We shoot first and then ask questions later. That's what happened. This is not acceptable to police work. What's amazing is how close they were to each other. These folks were separated by no more than five to six feet. And Street points out something else the police will have to explain. The apparent contradiction between Officer Hopper's statement

after the shooting and the coroner's report. Officer Hopper stated that the entire time that he fired at Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee was posing a threat. The problem with that is that the gunshot wounds were in Mr. Lee's back. He couldn't turn around and get his back to this officer by the time he shoots. That's ridiculous. So he's lying. He's lying. But is he?

When the subject points a gun at the camera, you say bang. The LAPD has its own expert. Bang. With some surprising revelations. I always love this picture because this is when he was a little boy. To this day, Tina Lee can't understand. Afro, big Afro. And the powder blue suit, it was just so classic 70s.

How her older brother Anthony, a successful character actor, It was so good and there was so much promise. Could end up dead. Shot to death at a Halloween party by Los Angeles police officer, Terrell Hopper, who thought a fake gun Lee pointed at him, was real. It's Halloween. People are going to be dressed up. You're going to see things.

confusing situation at best. I just don't know what the officer was thinking. The officer believes that he was in danger and others were in danger and he had to take actions. The LAPD immediately came under pressure which intensified after the autopsy revealed Lee was shot in the back four times.

They came out strongly and said he was pointing a gun at the officer. Tina's attorney, Johnny Cochran, blames the LAPD for Lee's death. If he were pointing a gun at the officer and the officer's firing him, at you, you'd expect the man would be hit in the face, in the torso, in the front. That wasn't the case. He was shot in the back.

These projectiles travel anywhere between 900 and about 1100 feet per second. Forensic investigator Tom Streed. Well, can you spin around at a rate of 1100 feet per second? I don't think so. The Los Angeles Police Department turned down our request for an interview with them and Officer Hopper. Even so, there is an expert who thinks he, He can't explain why Lee was shot in the back. OK, let's do it again, this time with a little resistance. His name is Bill Lewinsky.

Remember the temporal indivial angle? Lewinsky, who teaches law enforcement at Minnesota State University, has spent years doing time analysis research on the moves suspects make when they pull guns on cops. My goal was to understand how quickly the weapon could move forward and shoot at the officer. In other words, how much reaction time would the officer have? The LAPD heard about Lewinsky's research and contacted him.

But why? The shooting fits very closely with one of the motions that I studied. It's called the 180-degree turn to square back position. We need to take a look at two things here. How long it takes to pull the trigger and how quickly someone can do that turn. Ballistics tests conducted by the LAPD, similar to this one, which 48 hours arranged, estimated that it took Officer Hopper about two seconds to draw and fire all nine shots of his 45 caliber handgun.

But keep in mind, only four of the nine shots hit Lee. Five shots missed. What do you make of that? I believe those five shots were the first five rounds that were fired. And the last four rounds were the ones that impacted on Mr. Lee. He had to have time to do the turn. But could Lee have made a 180-degree turn? in the time it took Hopper to fire those first five rounds, about one second?

Okay, if we look at this motion, you see how quick that rotation can occur. If we look at frames, we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven frames, eight, 24 one-hundredths of a second. And the average subject is almost half a second. Half a second, giving Lee more than enough time, says Lewinsky, to have turned his back square to Officer Hopper. His conclusion? The first round's firing. Caused Mr. Lee to realize this was for real, and he had to get out of there.

And then he moved into the shots as he was turning. And that quick turn he made, you're saying, basically, it would appear as though the officer shot him in the back when there was no longer a threat. That's correct. To further prove his point, Lewinsky set up a simple demonstration. When the gun is pointed at you, you say bang. That's all I got to do. That's all you got to do. Okay.

Bang. He shot me, but now I shot him in the back. You shot him in the back. Bang. And I shot him in the back? You shot him in the back. It's very quick. Bang, bang, bang, bang.

I shot him square in the back. It's tough. No, this is not a... This is not a blanket excuse for cop shooting people in the back. But it does explain how an officer could see a situation justifiably shoot at the subject that's presenting the threat and yet have a vastly different outcome. The one factor that is etched in granted is that that person had their back to the shooter at the time they were shot.

But when we measure the... It'll give a deflection. Streets theory of the shooting depicted in this forensic animation is very different. from Lewinsky's. He believes the first four shots fired by Hopper hit Lee in the back, spinning him around before he fell to the floor. But even if Lewinsky's theory is correct, it still doesn't explain why Officer Hopper fired all nine rounds from his handgun.

These weapons are fired in bursts of two or three, and then you assess the necessity for additional shots. And the officer didn't do that. He stood in the front of this glass door. and fired nine shots. Firing through glass with a muzzle flash, that many rounds occurring so quickly. Could he stop his action?

Two seconds? We're expecting a lot from someone when they're facing their own death. But as far apart as Street and Lewinsky may be on what really happened the night Anthony Lee was shot, there is one thing they do agree on. I don't have any doubt in my mind that Anthony Lee thought the officer

was somebody from the Halloween party. And that's why he did what he did. There's no reason that anyone would pull a fake weapon and pointed at a police officer under these circumstances. What occurred was an absolute tragedy. It's a tragedy like so many officers involved shootings are. A real tragedy. Tragedy for the officer.

Tragedy for the department, the community, and most of all for Mr. Lina's family. It's really hard when I look at my daughter because I just know he would have been just a wonderful uncle. And it's just so hard because I know that she'll never know how wonderful he was. Tina's wrongful death suit against Hopper and the LAPD was settled in February, more than two years after Lee was killed. The agreed-upon amount of $225,000 was far less than she had originally sued for. But for Tina, it's not the money, but the message that matters.

I'm hoping somehow that if nothing else, if it makes LAPD think a little bit more about their policies and how they train their officers, if it makes them hold their officers just a little bit more accountable. If they take more seriously investigating officer-in-welf shootings, then at least that's a step in the right direction. In 2005, Alfonso Morales was convicted of all four murders and sentenced to death. In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom ordered a moratorium. on Executions in California.