A great deal has occurred since Culver City police officers shot dead an African-American robbery suspect on April 25 in front of a donut shop before a witness who, for all intents and purposes, is being told not to believe her lying eyes.

According to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Dave Dolson, who is leading the investigation into the broad daylight shooting, Lejoy Grissom, 27, was killed when he was shot three times in the chest with an MP5 submachine gun by a Culver City cop. There are now two versions of how Grissom met such a gruesome death in a strip mall on the corner of Venice Boulevard and Motor Avenue.

Dolson explained it thus: “An armed robbery had occurred at a nearby Radio Shack, after which a car was spotted leaving the scene. Culver City officers saw the car and saw that Grissom resembled the description of the suspected robber. The officers followed the car and executed a felony stop. Grissom, who was a passenger in the car, was told to show his hands and to exit the vehicle with his hands raised. He did that.

“But, according to the Culver City officers’ statements, at some point the suspect dropped his hands to his waist as if going for a weapon,” Dolson continued. “He was facing four to six officers lined up with guns pointed at him and he was shot three times in the chest with a MP5 submachine gun, which is a weapon the Culver City officers are authorized to carry,” Dolson said.

Criminal defense attorney Frances Prizzia, who was in the donut shop with a friend and witnessed the shooting and its aftermath, told her story of it last week, and she’s sticking to it. “The man had his hands up the whole time with all his fingers open. There was no way he was reaching for anything, except the sky,” Prizzia said this week. “He absolutely did not move his hands,” she reiterated. “The only time he moved was when he reverberated from the bullets.”

“We have independent witnesses who corroborate the officers’ version,” Dolson said. “And so do I,” Prizzia countered. Dolson is quoted in other published reports that the Culver City police found a gun on Grissom, but he declined to say whereabouts or what kind. Prizzia said that right after the shooting — and before Dolson arrived on the scene — the Culver City cops bragged to her about having found a gun in the backseat of Grissom’s car.

“No one is making a judgment on her statements,” Dolson said of Prizzia, who is a private attorney who formerly worked for the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, “We are not calling her a liar. We’re just ‘facts gatherers’ here. We gather the facts and present them to the district attorney and leave it to him to determine what will be done,” the sheriff’s lieutenant said.

Officials would not identify the young Latino officer Prizzia said she saw shoot Grissom, nor would they identify the older burly cop said to have removed the shooter’s weapon, tossed it in the backseat of his patrol car and then argued with Prizzia about proper police procedures.

Dolson did confirm that the driver of the car in which Grissom was riding had been arrested and booked for murder after the cops killed him. That woman was Grissom’s 20-year-old sister, Layla Grissom. She watched the cops cut down her brother with a submachine gun and she was arrested for murder.

Dolson said the murder charge may ultimately be reduced to robbery. He was not certain.

Another point: Officials withheld the identity of Grissom for three days after he was killed, stating they were unable to notify his next of kin. But they killed him in front of and then arrested his sister. Couldn’t his sister have given them their mama’s phone number the minute he stopped breathing?

While the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is gathering facts and leaving their use in the hands of the district attorney, the National Association of Equality and Justice in America (NAEJA) is taking Grissom’s killing directly to the FBI. “We’re not waiting for the DA to make his usual determination that his young man’s slaughter by the police was justified,” said Royce Esters, president of NAEJA. “We have an appointment with Steven Martinez, assistant director of the FBI on Tuesday at his Wilshire Boulevard headquarters where we intend to distribute copies of last week’s Wave story and demand federal intervention into this matter,” Esters said.

In addition to dealing with the specifics of Grissom’s killing, Esters said his organization, which is growing in influence throughout Southern California, will press for an investigation of the Culver City Police Department, which he says is notorious for violating the rights of African-American males. “We want police brutality stopped in Culver City,” Esters said.

NAEJA has a close relationship with the FBI, as the group meets frequently with that agency’s officials. Last month, NAEJA made the headlines in a Long Beach newspaper for taking on the Santa Ana Superior Court for applying unequal justice. NAEJA contends young black men are routinely meted out harsh penalties for minor offenses by the Orange County court, and it wants it stopped.

In other developments, funeral services for Grissom will be held Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at Solomon’s Mortuary, 10625 S. Broadway, in Los Angeles.