Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, February 22, 1989Police Raked for Handling
of Prostitute Murder Cases
By
BETTINA BOXALL, Times
Staff Writer Several community activists Tuesday complained to the Police Commission that the Los Angeles Police Department is mishandling and covering up an investigation o[ what appear to be serial killings of prostitutes In the South-Central area. Condemning
police silence on the slayings of at least nine women in the last three
years, spokesmen for the NAACP and a group that was formed after an
earlier wave of killings demanded that authorities release information
about the killings and call in federal authorities to investigate
whether the slayings are in any way linked to the murders of women in
other cities. The
department a refusal to
publicise the
slayings has further endangered the lives of poor black women living on
the Southside, Margaret Prescod of the Black Coalition Fighting Back
Serial Murders told police commissioners at the start of their Tuesday
meeting. "We
are outraged that you have made so deadly a calculation when so many lives
were at risk, a deadly kind of calculation that would not have been made
were it any other' community at risk. Imagine 12 or 13 or 29 women killed
in Westwood.... Would it have been such a well-guarded secret?" demanded
Prescod, who was accompanied by a member of the Altadena chapter of the
National Assn, for the Advancement of Colored People. Prescod also read portions of a statement from the U.S. Prostitutes Collective, in which the group complained that police harassment of prostitutes sends a signal that "it's OK to hunt down hookers or alleged hookers." The
criticism failed to pry any information out of police, and Police Chief
Daryl F. Gates instated that homicide investigators did not look at a
victim's color, occupation or life style in deciding how to handle a case.
"We look to nothing except that the person is dead," Gates said. "We
have to be very careful with what we say," so as not to jeopardize
the investigation, Gates added. "Whether there will be a statement
forthcoming, I can't say." Police
Commission President Robert Talcott said his panel will look into the
complaints but he would not comment on them. Although
news of the killings was leaked last week, police have refused to say
anything except that they are investigating the slayings of women who sell
sex for drugs. The timing of the killings appears to overlap by one year
with those in the Southside Slayer case, in which 17 women were found
strangled in the South-Central area between 1983 and 1986. One man has
been convicted in one o[ those deaths, and two other suspects were charged
separately in seven of the slayings.
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