Razo Asked to ‘Get High’ Before Confession, Officer Testifies

Jose Luis Razo, the Harvard University student charged with a string of armed robberies, asked a La Habra police detective if he could “get high” before he confessed to the crimes last summer, the detective testified Friday.

Detective Michael Moore, testifying on the third day of Razo’s preliminary hearing in North Municipal Court, said he met Razo at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in La Habra last July 6 after Razo called police and said he had information about a murder in Santa Ana.

“I told him I had no knowledge (about the case) but that the people from Santa Ana would like to talk to him at the police station,” Moore testified.

Razo, who grew up across the street from the church and attended school there for several years, got into Moore’s car in the church parking lot but then asked the detective “to drive by a friend’s house so he could get high,” Moore said.

‘Still Illegal’

The detective told Razo that “marijuana was still illegal” and that Razo could do what he wanted after speaking with police, Moore said. Razo then said he wanted to get out of the car but relented after Moore asked him if he was sure he didn’t want to talk about the murder case, Moore testified.

He said it was a few minutes after entering his office at the La Habra police station that Razo confessed to the robberies. )

Victims in 10 of the robberies have testified about the details of the crimes, but they have not identified Razo nor offered detailed descriptions of the robber or robbers. In all of the crimes, the robber wore a ski mask, the victims have testified.

Razo’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender James S. Egar, suggested after Friday’s session that his client’s request to “get high” may cast a shadow over the officers’ conduct in obtaining the alleged confession.

Egar said that when he cross-examines Moore on Monday, he plans to make Judge Arthur D. Guy Jr. aware of “information that the police had in their collective possession” regarding “factors which affected his (Razo’s) statements and may have impaired his judgment.”

“It sure sounds weird to me, as this officer (Moore) testified, that the first thing someone says when they get into a police car is ‘Can you take me to a friend’s to get high?’ ” Egar said.

The six-foot, 200-pound Razo was an outstanding student and football player at Servite High School in Anaheim before leaving for Harvard--where he played football and completed two years of study--in the fall of 1985.

Moore, under questioning by Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans, said he had just got off the phone with Santa Ana police when Razo told him he had committed “several robberies over the past several years. . . . He said he was here to help us . . . naming several stores that he had robbed.”

Moore said that another officer read Razo his rights before the 20-year-old told them how, for about two years, he had donned a dark ski mask or watch cap and clothing that covered his tattoos and scars and committed the robberies.

“He was usually alone,” Moore said Razo told police. “During two of them, somebody was with him, as a driver.”

Moore said outside the courtroom that Razo would not tell investigators who his accomplice was or on which robberies he accompanied him.

Before the first robbery--at a dairy store around the corner from the Razo family’s home in December, 1985--Razo hid in a trash dumpster until there were no customers, then robbed an elderly clerk of about $60, Moore said Razo told him.

On that occasion, Razo carried a .22-caliber automatic pistol, Moore said. Two days later, he robbed a Safeway market--this time carrying “a big gun, a .357,” Moore said Razo told him.