The Fight Against Crime Notes from the Front : Rewards for Crime Tips Rarely Help

You can get a lot for $25,000. But rarely the solution to a homicide.

While police and politicians frequently announce rewards for information that will lead to the conviction of killers, they admit that reward offers usually don’t help. Veteran detectives have to struggle to recall murder cases solved by a reward.

“Very seldom do we get any hits from that,” said LAPD Detective Marshall White of the Devonshire Division.

Records from the Los Angeles city clerk’s office show that the city paid out less than 10% of the rewards offered in roughly the last five years.

Rewards are offered through either the City Council or the County Board of Supervisors. Sometimes, detectives ask politicians to offer a reward for a killing in their district. Other times, it’s the politician’s idea.

The standard reward for murder cases in both jurisdictions is $25,000. Rewards range from $10,000 up in other crimes. Sometimes, corporations or wealthy families affiliated with victims kick in their own reward.

Detectives say they only request a reward if their investigation is at a dead end.

“If the hot leads are exhausted after the first couple of days, after that you’re grasping at straws,” said LAPD Detective Mike Coffey. “It’s just a way to say, ‘Point us in the right direction, we’ll figure out the case.’ ”

Rewards are usually offered only for homicides with victims of what one detective called “the right caliber”--innocent victims who draw the public’s sympathy, such as Stephanie Kuhen, the 3-year-old girl gunned down in Cypress Park allegedly by gang members, or Jyotasna Prajapati, a Van Nuys grocery store owner killed by two men she caught stealing beer.

White recalled one homicide in the Foothill Division which was a natural for a reward. “Four or five years back, this lady gets home at 3 a.m., and she’s shot in her van as she pulls up in front of her house,” he said. “And it was her birthday, for crying out loud.”

Despite a $25,000 reward, detectives never found the killer.

“There’s certainly no homicide that’s not important, but there are simply ones that touch peoples’ hearts more than others,” White said. For example, he said, rewards are rarely offered for someone who killed a drug dealer. “That’s just human nature.”

The flurry of publicity following the announcement of a reward can lead to dozens of tips. Even in cases where the tips don’t pan out, they can put investigators on the right track. And then there are the rare occasions when a reward-seeker helps bring a murderer to justice. Detective Tom Broad recalls one, when three people came forward with information on the execution-style murders of two teen-agers in a Subway sandwich shop in Northridge in 1991.

Subway offered a $10,000 reward; City Councilman Hal Bernson got the council to chip in another $25,000. Within days, detectives had gotten calls from three people who had been walking past the eatery that night and could identify the shooter, said Broad.

The information led to the conviction of James Robinson, then 22, a former employee at the restaurant who had been fired for allegedly stealing $200.

Broad couldn’t recall any of the dozens of other homicides he’s handled being cracked by tips from someone seeking a reward, but he still believes they’re a good idea.

“It lets people know our government is concerned,” he said.