Previous Tip on Suspect in Officer Ambush Is Probed

The Los Angeles Police Department is conducting an internal inquiry to determine whether investigators failed to act on a tip that Daniel Jenkins, accused of the ambush killing of a police detective in Canoga Park last year, had planned to shoot a victim in an earlier robbery, authorities said Saturday.

Cmdr. William Booth said the investigation centers on testimony at Jenkins’ ongoing preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Municipal Court that an informant told a Wilshire Division sergeant that the suspect was planning to shoot the victim. Booth said the investigation will attempt to determine “just how much credence that information should have been given.”

Jenkins, 30, of North Hollywood is accused of last October’s slaying of Thomas C. Williams, a North Hollywood Division detective who was struck by gunfire from a passing car as he picked up his 7-year-old son from a day-care center in Canoga Park.

At the time, Jenkins was free on bail, awaiting a jury’s verdict in the robbery of George Carpenter, a North Hollywood movie theater manager who was robbed in 1984 as he was depositing the night’s movie receipts at a nearby bank. Several months later, Carpenter was shot four times in a bar next to the movie theater. He survived the shooting, and Jenkins has been charged with the attack.

Informant Approaches Police

Cmdr. Booth said “at some point” after the robbery, an informant told Wilshire police that Jenkins was plotting a shooting and that the target might be Carpenter. The case was referred to Wilshire Division detectives, who said they passed the tip on to North Hollywood detectives.

However, at Jenkins’ preliminary hearing for the shooting of Williams, North Hollywood detectives said they never received that information.

“What we’re trying to do is find out in what context that tip originated,” Booth said. “We still don’t know precisely what the informant said and how readily identifiable the information should have been.”

Booth added that no individual officers are under investigation for misconduct.

Prosecutors have contended that Jenkins allegedly killed Williams because the detective had testified against him during the robbery trial of Carpenter. Jenkins was convicted of that robbery the day after Williams was shot to death.