Hoax Sparks Big Hunt for Injured Officer

Police were baffled Thursday by “a real whodunit” in which two dozen police, two helicopters and special K-9 units scrambled in response to a hoax report on police radio frequencies Wednesday night that an officer from the Wilshire Division was down and injured.

The massive search for the officer, prompted by a mystery man who used accurate police jargon over a restricted frequency, was called “the first I’ve ever seen like this” by Wilshire Division Sgt. Stan Freedman.

Police surrounded a Mid-City area near 7th Avenue and Venice Boulevard late Wednesday to search for the allegedly injured man. Two tense hours elapsed before police determined by a radio roll-call that no officers were missing, police said.

The prankster, who claimed to be an investigator with the Police Department’s anti-gang Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums unit, issued a high-priority call reporting that an officer had been injured while pursuing a drug dealer just after 10 p.m.

According to police, the caller first asked dispatchers to run several California license plate numbers through the computer and to give him information on the cars’ owners.

But when the dispatcher asked him to report his radio number--a number that usually shows up automatically on a screen--the caller was silent for several minutes. Among other things, the radio number is used to enter the officer’s location into a computer.

Minutes later, the man radioed that he was running after a suspected drug dealer near 7th Avenue and Venice Boulevard, officials said.

Call Sounded Real

“He then broadcast: ‘Officer down,’ ” one of the department’s highest priority calls, reserved for use when officers appear to be injured, Police Lt. Otis Dobine said.

“Because he was using police jargon, it was believable,” Dobine said.

“That caused immediate response from officers (who) were in the area.”

Within minutes, a swarm of patrol officers, members of the department’s elite Metro Division and anti-gang investigators descended on the area around 7th Avenue to join the search.

Still Unknown

By late Thursday, police had not discovered the identity of the prankster or how he was able to tap into restricted frequencies used by police for emergency calls.

However, one theory is that the man had obtained a stolen or misplaced hand-held police radio.

“We do have missing Rover (hand-held) radios that have been stolen or lost,” and so do many other police divisions, Freedman said.

“This is a real whodunit (because) a radio could be misplaced by an officer, say in a restaurant, or you might have one unaccounted for in a supply room that was taken by some unauthorized person.”

Another possibility, Freedman said, “Is that a kid--a son or daughter of an officer--might have got hold of a radio and may have known some call letters.”