LAPD Detective Error Leads to Murder

Los Angeles Times, “Interrogation, then revenge,” Joel Rubin, Ari B. Bloomekatz, July 2, 2008.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-interrogate2-2008jul02,0,3759815.story?page=1


This is a rather sad article about a 16 year old named Martha Puebla, who was gunned down due to poor detective work.

Shortly before 2 a.m. on Nov. 27, 2002, a girlfriend of Puebla's pulled up outside her house. The teenage girl, whom The Times is not identifying for her safety at the request of a prosecutor, had come with another friend, Christian Vargas. He stayed in the car while the girl went to Puebla's ground-floor window and asked if she wanted to come hang out.As the girls talked, gunshots suddenly filled the night air. The girl jumped through the window, cowering in Puebla's room. After a few minutes, she approached the car, where she found Vargas' body riddled with bullets. He begged the girl for help and then died, his head slumped against the steering wheel.After early interviews, suspicion fell quickly on Jose Ledesma, a member of the Vineland Boyz -- a notorious, violent gang that controlled much of the drug sales on the streets of Sun Valley. That night detectives searched his family's home. Under his mattress, they found a loaded assault rifle and letters from other Vineland Boyz, many of them written from prison.

Ledesma was eventually arrested and brought to Los Angeles where he was questioned.

To drive home his point, [Homicide Detective Martin] Pinner laid down a "six-pack" -- an array of mug shots that detectives often show to witnesses or victims of crimes. On it, Ledesma's photo was circled, and the initials "M.P." were written below it. "Those is the guy that shot my friends boyfriend" was scrawled along the margin, followed by Puebla's signature.

The issue here is that Martha did not cooperate with the police. The detective lied to try and strong arm Ledesma. The LA Times states that there is nothing legally wrong with lying to a suspect in order to try and get a confession.

The next night, Ledesma reached for a pay phone outside his cell. "Cokester," he said into the receiver, calling his friend Javier Covarrubias by one of his gang monikers, "do you know the slut that lives there by . . . my house? Her name starts with an M . . . I need her to disappear. She is dropping dimes."To the gang, Puebla was a snitch and needed to be dealt with.

She was later murdered on the curb next to her house. The major misstep is that the detectives did not warn Martha Puebla that she was potentially in danger – and also offer protection.

I think people must admit that everyone makes mistakes. Hopefully, the detective did not purposely fail to warn Martha. Perhaps he got busy and simply forgot or maybe it was due to poor training or perhaps he just was sloppy. What is sad is that in certain careers (law enforcement, doctors) a mistake can cost someone their life, which makes it all the more important for people in these types of careers to be even more conscious about checking everything off their to-do list.

I would hope that this LA Times article is read by detectives across the nation, because mistakes like this just shouldn’t happen.

Los Angeles: Gang Crack Down

LA Times, "Huge raid targets gang," June 26, 2008, Joe Mozingo, Sam Quinones and Molly Hennessy-Fiske.

Heavily armed police and federal agents stormed into a Glassell Park neighborhood Wednesday morning to wrest control away from a street gang -- and loyalists with deep family ties to its members -- that has in effect turned the sequestered swath of run-down apartments into rogue territory.

With a sweeping federal racketeering indictment, more than 500 agents, including 10 SWAT teams, arrested 28 people in an attempt to root out the Avenues gang members who have ruled the area with violence and near impunity.

The indictment, which grew out of a 10-month investigation, names 70 defendants -- mostly connected to the Drew Street clique of the larger Avenues gang . . .

Prosecutors allege that the gang committed three murders, shot at police, extorted businesses, conducted home invasion robberies, taxed drug dealers for the Mexican Mafia and threatened potential witnesses . . .

Francisco "Pancho" Real, 26, who was identified as the leader of the Drew Street clique, brought in $1,200 a day in drug money alone, according to a wiretap . . .

In March, Real ordered the owner of a local tire shop to pay him $30,000 within 24 hours, prosecutors allege, or he would kill him and burn down his shop. When the owner of an adjoining tire shop told Real that he did not understand why they had to pay him, Real said they were operating in his territory, the indictment alleges.

Real is one of 13 children of Maria Leon, the matriarch of the gang . . . She has a criminal record with three drug arrests . . .

This is what our police and Federal agents should be doing in Los Angeles, cracking down on these gangs that control parts of our city. I may not always have the highest regard for the LAPD, but in this case a definite "Cheers" is given.