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The Los Angeles Times
Saturday, August 7, 1999
D.A.'s Sweep of Delinquent Parents Also Nets
Criticism
By GREG KRIKORIAN,
NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Times Staff Writers
The Los Angeles County district
attorney's office on Friday announced that more than 400 parents
were arrested on suspicion of failing to pay child support in a
weeklong roundup by about 150 of the agency's investigators and
sheriff's deputies.
But the sweep,
which cost the county more than $600,000, was described by some
investigators as a failed and dangerous publicity stunt that
produced only a fraction of the targeted arrests and included plenty
of blunders--among them, the wrongful arrest of a Getty Museum
official's spouse.
Hoping to
dramatically reduce a backlog of 6,700 arrest warrants, Dist. Atty.
Gil Garcetti's office on July 30 deployed 100 investigators normally
assigned to criminal cases and contracted with the Los Angeles
County Sheriff's Department to also pay overtime to 50 deputies in
the sweep.
The result, officials
said, was that 427 "deadbeat" parents were arrested, 163 more
surrendered to authorities and 180 others were issued citations for
the misdemeanor charge of being delinquent in payment of child
support.
Steven K. Buster, the new
head of Garcetti's child support operation, hailed the roundup as a
success and said that, based on the agency's previous experience
with parents who are criminally charged for child support
delinquency, about 35% will ultimately pay support. That could
translate to $944,000 a year in new child support payments, he said.
While Buster praised what he
described as "an extremely well organized effort," several
investigators involved in the sweep told The Times a much different
story.
Investigators, interviewed
before the sweep officially ended, said the effort was dismissed
internally as disappointing. They said few arrests were made
compared to the number of outstanding warrants, and that their
colleagues' safety was jeopardized by poor planning.
With investigators sent knocking
on doors in some of the county's toughest neighborhoods, some
participants complained that they were not given time to even
collect rap sheets on those they were sent to arrest. They said the
inadequate planning not only put them at risk but also wasted their
time because many of those they were sent to apprehend were already
in jail or long dead.
They also
noted ruefully that the sweep occurred as lawmakers in Sacramento
prepared for final votes on legislation that would strip
California's county district attorneys of their oversight of child
support programs.
"I know this is
just political," said one investigator, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity for fear of retribution. "Everyone I've talked to is
very drained and frustrated. . . . We know our lives are just
disregarded."
Another district
attorney's investigator said management had told investigators the
sweep had to occur this week even though the investigators had said
it would take until September to do the necessary preparation.
"You're just spinning your wheels
out there," said that investigator, who also insisted on anonymity.
"You figure there's got to be some political reason."
Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Foltz
agreed: "It was an incredible waste of resources." Foltz, a former
district attorney's investigator, criticized the effort as an
"ill-conceived plan just for the purpose of making some kind of a
media" event.
Lt. Bill Guidas of
the district attorney's office, who helped coordinate the event,
rejected that characterization. "With any police officer serving any
warrant, there is a degree of risk," he said, "but I didn't hear any
of what you are hearing" in complaints. "Actually, I heard just the
converse, nothing but glowing comments."
The investigators interviewed by
The Times said the operation was thrown together too quickly. Word
of the ambitious effort began to trickle down last month, they said.
The investigators said they told management that more planning and
research time was needed, but were overruled.
The effort was supposed to
culminate with a press conference featuring Garcetti and Sheriff Lee
Baca. But after the fourth day--Monday--it was clear that the
results would be far less than expected: less than one arrest per
officer per day. On Tuesday morning, some investigators had been
sent back to their original assignments, several sources said.
"Needless to say," said one
investigator, "there was no press conference on this thing."
Instead, Garcetti's office
released a press release with a statement and reporters were
directed to present their questions to child support chief Buster.
Investigators said that before
going out they were warned not to make any arrests until they were
certain they had the right person. When investigators looked into
their warrant packets they understood why: Some warrants had
photographs attached of people with names similar to, but not
identical to, those of the suspects. Most warrants, they said, had
no other information--not even a rap sheet that could warn them if
the suspect was violent.
"They
could be a guy with a rap sheet a mile long that we don't know
about, and when you're knocking at the door you think you're there
for [child support] but they think you're there for that outstanding
[warrant for] assault with a deadly weapon," said one investigator.
No injuries were reported in the
sweep. Authorities did say that one woman made a formal complaint
after she was allegedly strip-searched by investigators with the
district attorney's office.
In
addition, Buster confirmed that the husband of an unidentified
official with the Getty was mistakenly arrested, apparently because
the man's identification had apparently been stolen by someone else.
"We are trying to figure out what
happened," Buster said.
Times
staff writer Tina Daunt contributed to this story.
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