Debate Flares After O.C. Teen Informant Dies

The mother says police gave her son this ultimatum: Snitch on drug dealers or go to jail. It was this relationship that Cindy MacDonald claims cost her 17-year-old son his life.

Brea police acknowledge they sometimes use youths as informants, but dispute the mother’s account and hope to unseal confidential records this week to prove their contention. But whatever the outcome, the little-noticed practice of using underage police informants has come under increased scrutiny by critics who warn that it places children too close to the violent drug culture.

Most Southern California law enforcement agencies say they never use minors for undercover operations, even if internal policy allows it. A few, including the San Diego Police Department, say they use underage informants only in rare cases.

The tragedy has underscored the dilemma faced by some police officers who say they need to rely on young informants to ferret out drug sales--especially when other kids are involved. But it also ignited a debate over whether using minors in the war on drugs is ever appropriate.

“It’s despicable, it’s the exploitation of children,” said Jack King of the Washington-based National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “It puts youngsters at a terrible risk and gives them the wrong idea of what the American criminal justice system is all about.”

The Los Angeles Police Department does not prohibit the use of juveniles for undercover work, but Cmdr. Dave Kalish, the department’s spokesman, said: “It’s been our practice not to use them to buy drugs” because of the risk and danger involved.

Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Sayne said his department has a well-established policy precluding juveniles from being informants.

The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department uses teens as decoys, but only to expose stores that sell liquor or cigarettes to minors, and only when a deputy is nearby to monitor transactions.

Riverside and San Bernardino police say they do not use underage informants, in part because there is no shortage of adults to do the job.

“The concern is, they’d be in harm’s way,” said Riverside Sgt. Chris Manning. “The other thing about kids: They’re not reliable. Children tend to exaggerate or embellish.”

Nonetheless, some police departments have concluded the use of children to halt drug trafficking is sometimes warranted, especially in cases where other juveniles are the suspects.

San Diego police, for example, use juvenile informants in drug cases but only with the written permission of a parent or guardian and in cases involving “low, low risk,” officials said.

“One of the hardest subcultures for law enforcement to penetrate is the teenage subculture,” said San Diego Police Capt. Cheryl Meyers.

Without informants, many crimes would go unsolved, law enforcement officials said. Some informants are paid. Others cooperate with police in the hope that they would receive lighter sentences.

Children are seldom relied upon to bust drug dealers because “juvenile informants can’t do very much for the police,” said Carl Armbrust, head of the Orange County District Attorney’s Narcotic Enforcement Team. Youths usually lack the contacts and the ability to deliver a drug kingpin.

Peter Arenella, a professor at UCLA Law School, said that turning a juvenile into an undercover police informant shows questionable judgment, “unless [the informant] had very special access to very significant criminal activity and the police had no other alternative.”

An attorney for Cindy MacDonald charged this week that her son, Chad, was forced into becoming a snitch after police arrested him in January for drug possession. The mother says the bargain with police--to become an informant in return for a lenient sentence--took MacDonald into a Norwalk home, well-known as a place of drug and gang activity.

The Yorba Linda boy’s body was found March 3 in an alley in South Los Angeles. He had been tortured. His girlfriend was raped, shot and left for dead in the Angeles National Forest, where she was rescued by a passing motorist.

While the case is still unfolding, law enforcement sources say Brea police told Orange County prosecutors they had stopped using MacDonald as a snitch before he turned up dead. Three suspects have been identified in his killing.

Some attorneys wondered why MacDonald and his mother decided to cooperate with police instead of accepting the usually light punishment first-time offenders receive in the juvenile system.

That system, said Dean Allen, supervisor of the Orange County public defender’s juvenile division, is designed to rehabilitate youths.

First-time juvenile drug offenders are usually able to seal their records and sometimes have charges dismissed if they show a willingness to reform, said Allen.

“There’s not a whole lot for [the minor] to gain from working as an informer,” Allen said.

Brea police and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office would not discuss the details of the MacDonald case, said Assistant. Dist. Atty. John D. Conley, an appointed spokesman on the case.

But Conley said that in the wake of the tragedy, prosecutors are considering a written policy discouraging the use of juvenile informants.

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Times staff writers Thao Hua, Tini Tran, Tom Gorman, Tony Perry, Nick Anderson and Matt Lait contributed to this report.