Los Angeles Police Department officials have reassigned a homicide detective and will train others to be more careful in protecting witnesses in light of the slaying of a teenage girl after officers disclosed her name as part of a ruse during an interrogation.
The detective, Martin Pinner, was removed from working homicide cases by supervisors earlier this month after The Times reported the 2003 slaying of 16-year-old Martha Puebla, said LAPD Deputy Chief Charlie Beck. The article detailed how a member of a notorious San Fernando Valley gang had Puebla killed after Pinner and his partner lied and told him that the girl had identified him as the killer.
Starting last week, training for all new and veteran detectives was changed to include clearer instruction on how to balance the often aggressive push to extract confessions from suspects with the need to protect witnesses -- actual or otherwise.
"It became clear [after the article] that we needed to add more pieces to our training," said Beck, who recently took over the department's detective corps. "We have never had this issue arise before, and we certainly do not want it to arise again."
The response comes nearly six years after Pinner, 41, and his partner at the time, Det. Juan Rodriguez, were assigned to the 2002 investigation of a young man gunned down in the middle of the night as he sat in his car outside Puebla's Sun Valley house.
The detectives' prime suspect was a 19-year-old member of the Vineland Boyz gang, Jose Ledesma. Ledesma fled to Mexico but was quickly caught and returned to the LAPD's North Hollywood station.
Before interrogating him, the two detectives doctored a photo "six-pack" -- an array of mug shots police often show to witnesses and victims of crimes. They circled Ledesma's photo, writing "Those is the guy who killed my friends boyfriend," and signed Puebla's name. In fact, Puebla had told the detectives very little, saying that she had been expecting Ledesma to visit her the night of the murder but that he had never appeared.
Pinner, with Rodriguez looking on, grilled Ledesma. He showed him the fake six-pack and repeatedly told the suspect that Puebla was cooperating with police. Ledesma did not confess. The next night he called another gang member on a pay phone from his jail cell and ordered him to kill Puebla because she was "dropping dimes" -- gang slang for snitching.
