MIAMI, April 9 (UPI) -- A federal court jury convicted four Miami police officers, acquitted three and deadlocked on four others Wednesday in a police corruption case.
The officers were charged with planting guns or lying about four police shooting incidents that took the lives of three black men and wounded one.
It was feared that an innocent verdict could result in racial unrest throughout the black community, but it was not immediately clear what impact the mixed verdict would have.
The jury deliberated for more than 67 hours over 12 days before finishing its work. The trial began with jury selection Jan. 20, but many expected it to last longer.
Convicted were officers Arturo Beguiristain, Jorge Castello and Oscar Ronda, along with former officer Jesus Aguero.
They were accused of conspiracy in a coverup of a shooting that wounded an unarmed homeless man in June 1997.
Beguiristain and Aguero also were convicted of a coverup of an incident in 1996 in which Aguero fired three shots. A "throw-down" weapon was used in that incident.
SWAT team members Rafael Fuentes, Eliezer Lopez and Alejandro Macias were acquitted in the fatal shooting of Richard Brown, 72, as they tried to serve a drug search warrant in 1996.
Sgt. Jose Acuna was acquitted in the Brown shooting. But the jury deadlocked on a conspiracy count resulting from the incident and on his role in the 1997 shooting of the homeless man.
There was a hung jury on officers Jorge Garcia, Jose Quintero and Lt. Israel Gonzalez. They were charged with conspiracy in the fatal shootings of two suspects in the attempted robbery of a tourist.
U.S. District Judge Alan Gould declared mistrials on the deadlocked decisions. It was not decided whether the government would retry them.
Macias faces trial later this month in another fatal shooting.
