The Fight Against Crime: Notes From The Front : ‘Crime Scene’ Cuffs Suspects in High Desert

His fellow detectives scoffed when Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Denham told them in February he was going to host a local cable TV show on crime fighting in the Antelope Valley.

The part of the show they liked least was a segment, patterned after the “America’s Most Wanted” show, which asks the public’s help in locating crime suspects.

“They were worried that suspects would flee,” Denham said, speaking from the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station. “They thought it might compromise the integrity of their investigations.

“They were skeptical it would help them catch anybody.”

No one is skeptical anymore.

“Crime Scene,” carried weekly on the Jones Intercable system in Lancaster and Palmdale, has been credited with a role in nine arrests in only seven months of broadcasting.

“The show has exceeded even our best expectations,” Denham said. “We are so pleased with the response we have been getting.”

The latest arrest came last week when William Grable, suspected of burglarizing an Italian restaurant in Lancaster, was nabbed after he was identified by the program’s viewers who saw videotape from a surveillance camera in the restaurant.

“He was shown stealing money out of a register and safe,” Denham said.

The only good clue detectives had prior to the show was that the man in the video was wearing a Fraternal Order of Eagles vest. “Some people in the organization recognized him because he had applied for membership in the Eagles but was turned down because of a criminal record,” Denham said. “It seems he had borrowed the vest from someone else.”

Grable, who has since confessed, made no attempt to flee although he knew he had been featured on “Crime Scene,” Denham said. “Fortunately, crooks are sometimes not so bright,” Denham said.

The show also features crime prevention tips and on-the-scene video from a camera mounted in a sheriff’s car--inspired by the popular Fox network show “Cops”--that “gives people an idea of what we really do out there,” Denham said.

But the tapes are far less dramatic than those seen on “Cops,” which regularly shows officers determinedly breaking down doors and yelling out warnings on the order of “Don’t even think about it!”

“Mostly it’s deputies responding to calls for service,” Denham said. “Sometimes a traffic stop.”

So, it’s little surprise that “Most Wanted” is the most celebrated part of “Crime Scene.” Denham is especially proud that the show provided a break in one of the Antelope Valley’s most notorious crimes this year.

In February, a group of men described as white supremacist skinheads fired shots into a parked car where four African Americans, including a 1-year-old girl, were sitting. Luckily, those in the car sustained only minor injuries, mostly from shattered glass. A short time later, deputies arrested three men on suspicion of attempted murder and commission of a hate crime.

One man remained at large--but only until his picture appeared on “Crime Scene.”

“After the show was rerun on Saturday, we got a call that led to the man’s arrest in Rosamond,” Denham said.

That incident alone ended the skepticism. “Now, even the detectives who were the most skeptical come to us and ask us to feature a crime they are working on,” he smiles.