Protecting Witnesses a Complex Problem for Law Enforcement

Calvin Cooksey showed police the note he said he found outside his girlfriend’s apartment, the one that made him think twice about taking the witness stand against the accused killer of two police officers.

“Homeboy, if you testify,” the note said, according to Cooksey’s lawyer, “you, your sisters and your mother will be killed.”

In a lawsuit against Los Angeles County, Cooksey contends investigators pledged to protect his family, then failed to take any action. Detectives insist they made no such guarantees and have questioned the authenticity of the menacing letter.

Twelve days after Cooksey reported finding the note, his mother was shot to death outside the Nickerson Gardens housing project in South-Central Los Angeles. Police have made no arrests but don’t believe the crime was an act of retribution.

Cooksey’s lawsuit, which went to trial last week, is one of the latest cases to illustrate the difficulties encountered in protecting witnesses in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the nation’s largest criminal court system.

Just last Wednesday, 36-year-old James Navaroli and his girlfriend were shot in West Hills before he could testify in a burglary case. Navaroli had left his county-rented apartment against the advice of police and returned to the West Valley area frequented by the burglary suspect, authorities and the man’s family said. Police were still investigating whether the shooting was connected to his pending testimony.

Across the county, law enforcement agencies have relocated 2,183 witnesses, family members and crime victims in the last five years, and last year spent an average of $1,619 per case--an amount that barely allowed authorities to cover two months’ rent for the families in hiding.

But even with a new wellspring of state funding to shield the endangered, local law enforcement officials say they still struggle to decide how much protection is enough.

Relying in part on the perceptions of anxious witnesses, investigators must pick the credible threats from the idle ones and work to prevent criminals’ dreams of revenge from coming true.

Before the prosecution of seven members of the Asian Boyz gang in Van Nuys, Los Angeles police studied the risks surrounding their star witness, 23-year-old gang member Truong Dinh, and placed him in protective custody. One reason: The gang is believed responsible for the killing of another witness in a murder case two years ago.

But police did not provide protection to Dinh’s family. On Oct. 23, hours after Dinh finished testifying for the day, a gunman appeared on the doorstep of the family’s San Jose home and killed Dinh’s 64-year-old father. San Jose police, who said they were never notified of the trial by the Los Angeles Police Department, believe the attack was ordered by one of the Asian Boyz members on trial.

Although a gag order has been placed on police and prosecutors at the trial, law enforcement sources said Los Angeles police didn’t extend protection to Dinh’s family because they thought the gang’s own code forbade it from striking at relatives.

San Jose Police Sgt. Gary Kirby, who is investigating the father’s homicide, said Dinh himself was shocked by the killing.

“Everybody was blindsided by it,” Kirby said.

With no guidelines for determining the credibility of a threat, many investigators said they often count on witnesses themselves to sense whether their family is in imminent danger.

“When you look at how far-reaching protection [should be], it has to be the witness telling you, ‘I think my family’s in danger.’ How would I know his father lived in San Jose? Without the information, your hands are tied,” said Det. Jesse Alvarado, a former homicide investigator who oversees witness protection funds for the LAPD.

But some critics say it is not enough to base an assessment of the safety of relatives on the intuition and wishes of the witness.

“Law enforcement has not been trained adequately in how to assess the dangers to families,” said Sergio Robleto, a retired commander of the LAPD’s busy South Bureau homicide unit.

“They go and talk to a witness and say, ‘What do you think?’ Is a witness trained in witness protection? You cannot expect a witness to control your professional standards,” added Robleto, who has been called to testify in the Cooksey lawsuit.

Prosecutors say a state witness protection fund established last year has allowed them to relocate witnesses and even cover their medical costs. Lawmakers approved $3 million for the first six months of the program, which has so far paid for protection efforts for at least 88 witnesses.

But the question of exactly how far law enforcement officials must go to provide protection for witnesses and their families remains legally murky.

Although prosecutors are immune from most lawsuits pertaining to witness protection, California courts have ruled that authorities have a “duty to warn” when they place someone in a perilous situation that was not “readily discoverable.”

California is one of only a handful of states where disputes over witness protection have resulted in litigation, and the city of Los Angeles alone has paid out more than $1.9 million in settlements to two plaintiffs who contended authorities failed to protect them.

Appellate Court Sides With Family

In 1993, the state appellate court sided with the family of 18-year-old Demetria Wallace, who was shot to death five days before she was to have been the key witness against a murder suspect.

According to court documents, a Los Angeles police detective who interviewed Wallace told her that the suspect was not a threat to her. But the detective did not inform Wallace that the man had been linked to two other murders and had been intimidating witnesses--even when an anonymous caller threatened to blow up Wallace’s house if she testified. Wallace never had a chance to take the stand. She was shot as she stood waiting for a bus.

“Society reaps enormous benefits when a witness’ testimony succeeds in getting a criminal off the streets and behind bars,” the court wrote. “Society must be willing to pay for that benefit by affording necessary protection to both the witness and his family, for the threat of violence against a witness’ family will often silence the witness.”

But the court has held that authorities are not always responsible for protection. In the most recent witness protection case to reach the appellate courts, judges threw out a lawsuit filed by the family of Moises Torrez, a 16-year-old gang member who was killed one week after prosecutors read a statement he had given police implicating a fellow gang member in a drive-by shooting. Although police had assured Torrez that no harm would come to him as a result of being questioned, they didn’t promise him protection or fail to warn him of a known threat, the court found.

In police interviews where shades of language can mean the difference between reassurance and a guarantee, investigators insist they don’t worry about civil liability. But they remain mindful of the terms of the contract that witnesses must agree to.

The contract--which witnesses must sign if their protection is to be funded by the state--requires that they take “all necessary steps” to avoid detection by others once they are relocated.

This causes problems in many cases because witnesses--particularly former gang members--have trouble cutting off ties to their old neighborhoods and associates. If witnesses place themselves in danger, law enforcement officials say they cannot be held responsible.

Police said that Dinh, the Asian Boyz witness, put himself in jeopardy before the trial started by calling relatives in San Jose. Investigators worried that knowledge of his whereabouts would trickle down to Dinh’s cousin Son Thanh Bui, who is one of seven defendants in the case.

“If they’re not concerned, there’s nothing we can do for them,” said Johnny Boulden, deputy chief of the San Diego County district attorney’s Bureau of Investigation, which has a staff of 40 in its witness protection unit.

Authorities attributed several other high-profile deaths to witnesses’ own disregard for their safety.

In 1994, for example, Georgia Jones was shot to death less than two weeks after she testified in a gang-related homicide case. Without the knowledge of the police who were protecting her, authorities said, Jones had returned to her gang-infested neighborhood. Three hours after she called officers to complain about a man who was bothering her, she was shot.

Concern That Killing Will Deter Witnesses

In another case, 27-year-old Marco Jasso and his niece were shot to death in South Los Angeles in 1994 while police were arranging for him to be a witness against the Mexican Mafia prison gang.

Now some law enforcement officials are worried that the killing of Dinh’s father will frighten potential witnesses in other cases and cause them not to step forward and testify.

“The chilling effect that events like this have cannot be described,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jennifer Lentz Snyder, who helped crusade for the creation of a statewide funding program last year.

The effect on investigators assigned to protect witnesses has been no less alarming.

“This goes to show, no matter where you go, or how far away, there are certain gangs that are that vicious,” said Alvarado of the LAPD. “If you’re on trial for murder, what’s one more?”