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By Kevin Johnson
USA Today
ALBUQUERQUE — In the city that launched the national crime-stoppers movement -- which pays informants for tips that help police solve local crimes -- Albuquerque detectives are taking the idea one controversial step further.
The Albuquerque Police Department put a want ad in the city’s weekly newspaper for “people that hang out with crooks to do part-time work.”
“Make some extra cash! Drug use OK. Criminal record? Not a problem.” The ad in the Weekly Alibi prompted 93 calls during its two-week run before it was taken down last week, police spokesman John Walsh said.
He said some calls yielded valuable information in a drug investigation and two violent-crime cases. Walsh said the ad will run again “as soon as the detectives feel they need the help” and it could become a model for other agencies.
The ad is drawing criticism from legal analysts who say it could lead to inaccurate information when some agencies are re-evaluating how they deal with paid informants.
“In an economy when jobs are scarce, this is just asking people to make up information for money,” said Ellen Yaroshefsky, a legal ethics professor at New York’s Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. “This is extremely dangerous.”
In 15% of cases involving a wrongful conviction overturned by DNA evidence, an informant or jailhouse snitch testified against the defendant, said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, which seeks to free the wrongfully convicted.
Among agencies changing how they deal with informants:
*Atlanta police amended their policies in 2007 and again this year after a botched drug raid based on an informant’s tip, spokesman Otis Redman said. Supervisors must witness informant payments, and sources must undergo credibility checks.
*The Tallahassee Police Department reviewed its policies after the shooting death of an informant in May, Capt. David Hendry said. The new policy allows only 30 of 360 officers to oversee cases involving informants.
Informants “do have capabilities,” Hendry says, “but you have to be careful. They may be playing their own games.”
In Albuquerque, Walsh said, informants get $50 to “several hundred dollars,” based on the value of their tips, once the tips are checked and confirmed. The agency decided to advertise, he said, because “we were running dry on information.”
Thomas Kern, chairman of Crime Stoppers USA, said he was “taken aback” by the ad. He said it casts all informants as “snitches” when potential witnesses are being pressured not to cooperate with law enforcement. “I think it may be sending the wrong message,” he said.
Copyright 2008 USA Today