L.A. police 'clue chaser' handling 250,000 tips

In 1991, Bill Pavelic established himself as the foremost insider critic of racism and corruption in the LAPD.

Bill Pavelic has been the subject of many articles nationally and internationally for speaking out against and exposing racism that he personally witnessed as a LAPD Detective.

On June 30, 1992, Bill Pavelic sent the following letter to the Los Angeles Sentinel concerning the institutionalized racism, corruption, and sexism, of the LAPD under Chief Daryl Gates’ leadership.

To: Los Angeles Sentinel Opinion Section

As a 19 year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, I am elated that Chief Gates was forced into retirement. His corrupt managerial style, coupled with his inflammatory and intemperate public comments, have done irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles and its police department.

Daryl Gates and his close associates are suffering from a disease called megalomania……an exaggerated belief in their own greatness and that of the organization. In order to maintain a mythical status of being “the best law enforcement agency in the world” the LAPD management developed a bunker mentality and consciously impeded and retarded investigations or inquiries which reflected poorly on the organization. The “us against them” mentality required faulty analysis which was oftentimes based on pseudo reasoning, clever fallacies and distorted or manufactured evidence.

The disciplinary system under the leadership of Daryl Gates lacked consistency, uniformity and equality and sent a deplorable signal to others on the force, that it is OK to falsify official investigations, violate the LAPD manual, discredit the Code of Ethics and be dishonest as long as you are a member of management or have friends at the top who will protect you even when prima facie evidence of a crime is clearly evident.

Chief Gates has failed to hold accountable personnel under his control who were acting under the color of law and were exercising illegal direction under the guise of official authority. In no sphere of public life is this practice more repugnant than in law enforcement. Chief Gates, who morally bankrupt the Los Angeles Police Department, forgot, or never knew, that true leadership can be gained only by an intolerance of wrong doing…and…unless we all abide by the highest standards among ourselves, we have no business enforcing the law upon others.

Chief Gates used the Internal Affairs Division to intimidate those officers who dared to speak out against Los Angeles Police Department’s institutionalized racism, corruption, sexism, mismanagement, promotional cronyism and other sensitive issues. If the Internal Affairs Division didn’t get these “disloyal” police officers, like the Russian KGB, the organization could always count on the Medical Liaison Unit to send these officers to the Department shrink…to certify them as functionally crazy.

Under the leadership of Chief Williams, respect for individual dignity will once again become an integral part of the Los Angeles Police Department’s philosophy…a philosophy that will be based on the principles of professionalism, reverence for the law and harmony between the police and the community it serves.

Respectfully,

Bill Pavelic, Southwest Division

2008/5/26

@ 02:46 AM (17 months, 20 days ago)

Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada)

July 28, 1994 Thursday Final Edition

SOURCE: FROM SPECTATOR WIRE SERVICES

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A10

LENGTH: 494 words

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES

OS ANGELES -- Encouraged by the promise of a huge reward or the chance to contribute to a historic investigation, 250,000 callers have flooded a newly created hotline with tips about the O.J. Simpson murder case, while similarly besieged police have designated a full-time "clue chaser" to run down the leads coming to them.

"It's beyond belief," Mr. Simpson's lead attorney, Robert Shapiro, said of the hotline deluge. He said calls have become "so overwhelming" that the operators have had to install a special back-up recording system to keep up with the crush.

Tipsters have included private investigators with clues based largely on news reports, amateur detectives with theories implicating other would-be suspects and people claiming to have witnessed the events surrounding the grisly murders of Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Ronald Lyle Goldman, 25, on June 12 outside her apartment in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.

Although some of the tips are seemingly credible, many appear to be the products of overactive imaginations. One Maryland woman has called repeatedly to tell of dreams in which she sees another killer. To her frustration, Mr. Simpson's camp has not gotten back to her.

"We're hearing from every psycho and every crazy person," said Bill Pavelic, an investigative consultant working with the Simpson team.

"But if I get one call in a hundred that's a good lead, it's worth it."

Thin promise

Rising to that thin promise, investigators on both sides of the nationally publicized probe are painstakingly chasing down each of their leads, reluctant to pass up any information that could later prove important.

The pace of tips has convinced some Los Angeles Police Department officials that Mr. Simpson's camp may be fuelling the fires in part to occupy detectives who might otherwise be building a case against Mr. Simpson, 47.

Any tip that is not checked out could be used against the prosecution at trial. Mr. Simpson's camp already has made clear its intention to attack the thoroughness and competence of the investigation into their high-profile client.

"There's people that are giving us theories, there's psychics, that kind of thing," said Detective Dennis Payne of the police department's Robbery-Homicide Division.

With the stakes so high for both sides, police detectives and Simpson investigators are simultaneously pounding the pavement, occasionally running into one another at the crime scene and other locations.

According to sources in both camps, the most recent wave of tips has featured several from eager private investigators trying to ferret out new clues in the case.

While most of the tips -- founded and unfounded alike -- are about the principal players in the celebrated whodunnit, many come from people with a dizzying array of thoughts on other issues.

One Santa Barbara woman, for instance, hypothesized that a large dog might have carried a bloody glove to Mr. Simpson's home.

LOAD-DATE: October 13, 2002

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

TYPE: News