Vow Made to Keep Serial Killer Task Force at Existing Strength

Los Angeles Police Commissioner Barbara L. Schlei and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates joined Tuesday in pledging that there will be no reduction in the number of detectives assigned to investigate the slayings of 17 women in and near the South-Central area of the city.

Their statements came at a commission meeting at which Margaret Prescod, a frequent critic of the department’s investigation, charged that there is “a feeling among women that you don’t care, that our lives don’t count.”

Prescod’s appearance before the commission was apparently prompted by recent speculation that the Southside Serial Killer Task Force would be reduced or disbanded.

Most of the victims have been black women with records of arrests for prostitution.

Prescod, head of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, said she was speaking for scores of women’s organizations.

“There’s never been any intent to reduce the manpower of the task force,” Gates said. “There has been some (public) discussion about the Sheriff’s Department . . . but I can’t speak for the Sheriff’s Department.”

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced earlier this month that eight of the 16 investigators it had assigned to the investigation have been reassigned.

Even before Prescod spoke, Schlei, acting head of the commission, said the Police Department places “enormous importance on the investigation.” She said that 45 detectives are assigned to the task force and that to date they have checked out 4,326 clues and put in 28,000 hours of overtime on the slayings, which are believed to be the work of more than one killer.

In another development, a Southern California Rapid Transit District supervisor who was taken into custody a year ago and questioned about the killings has filed suit against the Police Department, claiming that he was falsely accused of being the Southside slayer.

In the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, James L. Perry said he was surrounded Jan. 28, 1986, by officers who kicked him, handcuffed him and transported him to the Southwest Division station for four hours of questioning.

Perry said the officers accosted him after he pulled his car over to the curb to talk to a woman neighbor. Steven K. Hauser, Perry’s attorney, said Perry received an apology from police after the neighbor verified his account, but when he returned to his car, which had been left open, $1,253 was missing.

Hauser said Perry was traumatized by the incident and has been unable to return to work. The suit seeks compensation for the lost $1,253 and unspecified general damages.

Police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth said he could not comment on the suit. He said he had no record that Perry was arrested and that he will not disclose the name of anyone who had been temporarily detained and questioned by police.