LACP.org
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Most Wanted Criminals
How best to get the word out . . .
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Most Wanted Criminal Suspects
How best to get the word out ... ?


LAPD posts a lot of information about suspects in local, regional, nation and even international crimes on its website. The link below will take you directly to the cover page for that section:

http://lapdonline.org/get_involved/most_wanted/most_wanted_main.htm

Unfortunately the module on crimes by Divisions, the one that might be most useful to residents, seems to not be working as of this writing. We hope that's because it's being updated, and look forward to it being repaired soon.

Many of the LAPD Press Releases deal with a description of a crime, a suspect or a reward ... but tracking all this information can become a full time occupation:

http://lapdonline.org/press_releases/press_releases.htm

Police are often heard extolling the virtues of having the community be its extra eyes and ears. So obviously anything that assists a resident in understanding who and what they are looking for is important.

For community policing to be effective, we'll want to examine new ways to streamline the process, offering accurate, timely information locally. We'll want to take advantage of the thousands of Angelenos that stand ready to assist LA in its fight to make ours the safest big city in the country.

Personal contact between officer and community menbers will always be important, but there are many other ways this sharing of information can happen efficiently, and certainly the computer can help.

Email makes it quick and easy to send information to a group that desires to receive it, either for their own personal safety or so they can actively participate. Community members are already familiar with the use of e-groups (to see the full article: E-group Alarm Discussion).

There's no reason a set of Divisional private groups could not be established in Los Angeles. People can self-designate their desire to participate (or remove themselves at will). Using the blind carbon copy (BCC) method of distribution is simple enough, and this means that lists can be maintained in confidentiality.

Chief Bratton understands this and spoke of it when he and the Mayor sat down with some of us at the Community Policing Roundtable in November (to see the full article: Community Policing Roundtable).

At one point late in the meeting, the ensuing dialogue occurred, when an active Los Feliz resident brought up the issue. She related it to Senior Lead Officers needing better tools, Neighborhood Councils needing better information, and the use of the internet:

The next community member the Mayor selected to speak was from the Los Feliz Improvement Association.

Suggestions: She spoke about the need to build relationships between the SLO's and the City Departments. Senior Lead Officers' frequently identify problem areas (a need for better lighting, illegal dumping, etc.) and then they get stuck … not getting a good response from City Departments. The other City Departments need to understand that when they do respond they have a huge success rate on fighting crime.

Secondly, she'd like to begin to build relationships with the Neighborhood Councils. Community Policing can grow and prosper if we immediately begin to build relationship with the Neighborhood Councils. The Senior Lead Officer program can play this role.

Finally she'd like the LAPD to begin to work with technology a little more, by taking advantage of e-mail. "An e-mail crime alert system between LAPD Divisions and Neighborhood Watches would be a very quick way to get everybody with crime trends in the neighborhood."

Chief Bratton: "Let me follow up on a couple of issues on these points. We had a meeting in the last couple of days about the use of e-mail as a way of getting alerts out. You're very familiar with the new system on the highways when we have a missing child … about using that. And we are looking at the potential of literally having an e-mail "burst list" that if we have an issue we can get it out very quickly and take advantage of technology. So we had a significant discussion about that.

We're also hoping when we get the new COMPSTAT system, FASTRAC, up and running early next year that my vision would be to literally put it on the website. That what my command officers are looking at when they do COMPSTAT there's really no reason why you in the neighborhood, those of you equipped with computers couldn't bring it up on your screen "… here's where the crimes are occurring, here's where the arrests are occurring, here's information on those …"

Because you are our eyes, and yes, you are our partners, and you are our Neighborhood Watches, and need to know what we're looking for. Similarly, if there's a crime pattern developing in your neighborhood, we'd give you a burst on the e-mail list that we have this happening. So we're going to try to take advantage of that technology, certainly.

I'm also actually very interested in your neighborhood … my wife and I will be moving in there sometime after the first of the year, so, we'll be looking forward to seeing you over there. You can give me some good hints on where to shop and where to eat."
.

As it happens, just a few days later a rapist struck in Los Feliz, the Chief's new neighborhood.

The LA Times reported the story, and that's how many in the community discovered the suspect had been active in the Northeast and Hollenbeck areas since 1995!

According to LAPD the assault on this young girl meant he'd struck for the 18th time.

Local activists, including the very woman the Chief had spoken to at the Roundtable, are struggling to understand why this wanted criminal had never been caught, and what can be done about it.

It's been disheartening. They've discovered incomplete information, uninformed officials, and programs that are either ineffective or seem to exist only on paper (the "Safe Passage" and "Safe House" programs, for example).

They've come to believe that the suspect, a serial rapist, may well end up continuing his local crime spree ... unless they take matters into their own hands.

So, these community members have been on the web themselves. They set up a community meeting with the LAUSD, LAPD and parents, and they've used the internet as just one of the very effective tools at their disposal to find out information (or the lack thereof) and get the word out.

Here's just one of the emails that was sent recently:


Hyperion Bridge Rapist
... a monster in our midst

An article entitled "Sexual Predator Is Stalking Los Feliz-Area Schoolgirls" appeared in the LA Times on December 16th, 2002, and reported on a rape that occurred near Marshall High School.

The piece hit some Northeast LA area residents hard, not simply because it vividly described a horrible crime, but because, unknown to many locals, the predator had been in their midst, attacking young girls for years. This time, a 17-year-old senior was attacked, dragged under a bridge and raped.

The suspect? The Times identified him as a "potbellied, flat-faced man wearing a beanie" who the paper reported had accosted or raped at least 17 schoolgirls over a 7 year period, and according to the paper, had been active in the communities of Los Feliz, Silverlake, Atwater Village, Highland Park, Cypress Park, Lincoln Heights and Montecito Heights.

Yet many residents, including local activists who regularly interacted with LAPD, had no idea this man was on the loose, much less that several accurate descriptions, including artist's renderings, have been available for years.

He's an overweight male Hispanic, 5'6" - 5'8", 200 - 280 pounds, in his mid 30s, and is described as having large fleshy hands, a "potato-shaped" nose, often unshaven, with a potbelly, and strong odor. In a typical attack the suspect appears to be jogging as he approaches his victims from behind. Then he grabs the victims, often dragging them into some bushes or under a bridge, and sexually assaults them.

Further investigation revealed he's been active all this time in the vicinity of Marshall and Franklin High Schools and Nightingale Junior High, often attacking schoolgirls walking to and from school.

Since 1995 his assaults have occurred in two Police Divisions, Northeast and Hollenbeck, and in portions of at least four City Council Districts, those currently held by Ed Reyes (CD1), Tom LaBonge (CD4), Eric Garcetti (CD13) and Nick Pacheco (CD14).

He struck at least three times last year.

Concerned parents and the LAPD are hosting a community meeting about this:

Thursday, January 30, 2003 at 6:30 pm
John Marshall High School
3939 Tracy Street in the Sniffen Auditorium
(for parking enter off Griffith Park Blvd. or Tracy Street)

SPECIAL NOTE: If your browser allows, copy and paste the URL below from LAPDonline.org into it to see the suspect's picture. You can read his description and see a list of the 18 crimes LAPD attributes to him, including the dates and locales of his known assaults.

URL from LAPD describing suspect:
http://lapdonline.org/get_involved/most_wanted/northeast_most_wanted/mw_010407809.htm

It's confusing that there are five people shown on the page, but the Hyperion Bridge Rapist is the last person pictured at the bottom.

For further information please contact:
Detective Greg Stone, Robbery-Homicide Division, Rape Special Section at (213) 763-5061
After hours call the Detective Headquarters Division at (877) 529-3855

Let's get the word out and catch this guy … enough is enough.
.

Unfortunately there are far too many Most Wanted Criminal Suspects out there for the police alone to handle.

Los Angeles will have to work smart, using every tool we can find, and engaging every law abiding stakeholder, sworn and resident, if we expect to make a difference.

Because I believe the streets should belong to us.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Following the meeting described above the Park2Park community website which serves Echo Park and Griffith Park areas ran a synopsis.

Please click here to go to the story:

Park2ParkLA - Hyperion Attacker article

Please click here to go to the Park2Park LA homepage:

Park2ParkLA.com