Career Criminals Out of Work

Using informants and good old-fashioned follow-up, police investigators in a new unit are cracking down on career criminals in the San Fernando Valley, resulting in more than 200 arrests since its establishment six months ago.

The busts have also dealt a serious blow to a scattered group of alleged white supremacist thieves and drug dealers called the Peckerwoods. But some defense attorneys worry the unit will go overboard.

Brian Liddy, a detective with the unit, describes the 12-man squad, which operates out of the Van Nuys station, as a response to Chief Bernard Parks’ directive to employ proactive policing strategies.

“We’re afforded time to go and dig up information,” Liddy says. “This is really where police work is going in the future. In the past, people have reported information, but the detectives who got the information didn’t have the resources to take it any further and really do a thorough investigation.”

Rather than wait for leads to appear following a crime, detectives go after convicts and parolees who don’t show up for their regularly scheduled meetings with their probation officers. They go after ex-felons who have firearms. They go after gang members who abuse their girlfriends. In short, they search out the kinds of infractions that often slip through the cracks of the criminal justice system.

The idea is to get repeat offenders off the street for even minor crimes, before they commit more serious ones, says Det. Carl Whiting, head of the unit.

Systematic interrogations are a main component of the program. Detectives “debrief” arrestees, not only to find incriminating information for cases against that individual, but also to begin new cases against other people, Liddy said.

Informants range from suspects awaiting sentencing, to people on the street with axes to grind, to householders complaining about gang members sitting on their doorsteps.

This debriefing technique was pioneered in Minneapolis with favorable results and recently became a component of Parks’ Focus Accountability Strategy and Teamwork program, Whiting said. Similar units may be formed at other divisions throughout the city if the Van Nuys experiment is successful.

“It’s all part of trying to make the police a little more effective and addressing problems as they come up, instead of being in a reactive mode all the time,” Liddy said.

Mary Broderick, executive director of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, said the unit raises serious civil rights concerns.

“My concern would be that the officers might go overboard, especially if their performance evaluations are linked to the number of arrests they make,” she said. “And there’s always a concern that if investigators offer something to their informants . . . the informants have an inducement to make something up.

“Perhaps the officers’ time might be better spent investigating serious open cases rather than trying to create minor cases against people with previous crimes.”

Detective Whiting calls Broderick’s comments “very serious accusations” and said performance evaluations are not tied to the number of arrests. “We are looking at quality and not quantity,” said Liddy.

In what is being touted as the unit’s biggest success, career criminal investigators have arrested about 20 members of the San Fernando Valley Peckerwood gang in the last three months. Police say members of the gang are involved with the production and distribution of methamphetamine.

Peckerwoods, who have a reputation for drug use, are also involved in various criminal enterprises around the Valley, including residential burglary, auto and other thefts to support their habits, Liddy said.