SANTA ANA — Yorba Linda teenager Chad MacDonald Jr., whose tortured body was found in a South Los Angeles alley, made one undercover drug buy for the Brea Police Department before being dropped as an informant 10 days before his death, according to documents released Wednesday that reveal new details about the controversial case.
The release of police reports and Orange County district attorney files marked law enforcement's first public acknowledgment that the minor was used as an informant. The documents spell out MacDonald's relationship with Brea drug investigators and the dates during which he worked for them.
The 17-year-old's family has insisted that it was this work as an informant that marked him as a "narc" and cost him his life. They repeated that charge Wednesday.
Law enforcement officials, however, stressed that the documents show MacDonald's work for them was not life-threatening: He mainly provided information about illegal activity and made one undercover drug buy that failed to result in any arrests.
When MacDonald was later arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana and methamphetamines, police concluded he was selling and using drugs in violation of his agreement with police, and he was dropped as an informant on Feb. 19, police said.
Brea Police Chief William C. Lentini, who has been under fire for using the juvenile as an informant, was granted a court's permission Wednesday to discuss the case in detail for the first time. Lentini said that MacDonald was responsible for his own death.
"Here was a kid who is 90 days away from his 18th birthday and who's had a lot of experience in the drug world already," Lentini said. "It is not our belief he was killed because of his involvement with us, but because of his very deep involvement with drugs in general."
But MacDonald's family insisted that the documents support their claims that the teen's work for police became known to his alleged killers in Norwalk, where the teenager went on March 1. MacDonald's body was found two days later in a South Los Angeles alley. His 16-year-old girlfriend, who accompanied him, was raped and shot but survived.
"If he had not been working as a snitch with the cops, Chad would be alive today," said Lloyd Charton, an attorney speaking on behalf of MacDonald's mother, Cindy, who has declined to be interviewed. "It doesn't take a genius for these people to figure out who's ratting them out."
