2 LAPD Officers Plead Not Guilty to Firing on CHP Officer

Two Los Angeles police officers pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges they shot at a California Highway Patrol officer last month while he wrote a speeding ticket.

Officers Michael Herrera and Ted Teyechea, both 30, stood silently with their hands clasped in front of them during the afternoon hearing. Their pleas were entered by their attorneys.

Defense attorneys admit the pair shot firearms to “let off steam” while driving in a pickup truck along a freeway, but deny that they aimed at CHP Officer Scott Wall. “It will be found to be a reaction to pent-up stress over a long time that came out when they were drunk,” attorney William Hadden, who represents Herrera, said outside court.

“Absolutely they’re sorry, they’re embarrassed, they’re scared to death,” said Barry Levin, who represents Teyechea.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Steinfeld called the case “as serious as it gets, taking two semiautomatic weapons and firing them 16 times on a crowded freeway in the afternoon.”

Wall reported that he was fired on by someone in a passing pickup Feb. 9 while he was writing a ticket to a motorist on the Harbor Freeway in Gardena. No one was injured. The officers were arrested after their pickup became mired in a traffic jam on the Artesia Freeway.