FBI and LAPD join forces to solve more than two dozen homicide cases

With agents, cash and equipment to spare, the FBI offered to help police stymied by lack of cash to pay detectives overtime. Arrests were made in Minnesota, Arizona and Nevada.

September 30, 2010|By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

For months, the budget crisis in Los Angeles has hamstrung and frustrated the city's homicide detectives. With no money to pay for the long hours of overtime they typically work, LAPD officials saw no choice but to force detectives to take time off from the job. Cases started taking longer to solve or going cold.

The LAPD's struggles weren't lost on Robert Clark, an FBI assistant special agent in charge of the bureau's anti-gang efforts in Los Angeles. Clark's concern grew as he watched the number of gang-related killings in the city's violent southern swatch spike in early summer. With agents, cash and equipment to spare, Clark approached LAPD officials with an unusual offer to help.

The results were striking: More than two dozen homicide cases were solved during a first-of-its-kind collaboration of the two agencies.

"I've been doing this for a long time and I've never seen anything like this," said veteran LAPD homicide Det. Sal LaBarbera. "We were able to clear cases at a pace that we never would have been able to hit. Twenty-seven homicides in three months? That's unheard of."

Though the FBI and LAPD have collaborated before, officials from both agencies said the speed with which the improvised idea came together, the scope of the assistance and its immediate effect were unprecedented.

Crime L.A. Mapping crime in Los Angeles cities and neighborhoods

Crimes reported by LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff for six months ending violent
crimes property
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FBI and LAPD join forces to solve more than two dozen homicide cases

With agents, cash and equipment to spare, the FBI offered to help police stymied by lack of cash to pay detectives overtime. Arrests were made in Minnesota, Arizona and Nevada.

Crime L.A. Mapping crime in Los Angeles cities and neighborhoods

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