Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders

Several community activists Tuesday complained to the Police Commission that the Los Angeles Police Department is mishandling and covering up an investigation of what appear to be serial killings of prostitutes in the South-Central area.

Several community activists Tuesday complained to the Police Commission that the Los Angeles Police Department is mishandling and covering up an investigation of what appear to be serial killings of prostitutes in the South-Central area.

Congress should investigate the unsolved murders of at least 16 women in and near the South-Central Los Angeles area over the past 3 1/2 years, a women's group said. Margaret Prescod, a spokesman for the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, also called for day-to-day FBI assistance to augment the Southside Serial Killer Task Force, composed of Los Angeles police and Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies.

Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell said Saturday that he will ask the council to authorize a $25,000 reward "to awaken the public's attention" to the search for a killer believed responsible for the deaths of at least 15 women, nearly all of them black prostitutes in South-Central Los Angeles.

A coalition dissatisfied with police efforts to capture a serial killer in South-Central Los Angeles said Thursday they will ask federal authorities to enter the investigation next week. "If these murders had happened in Beverly Hills, we would have seen much more progress," said Margaret Prescod, coordinator for the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders. "If police are having difficulty . . . it is past time to bring in other agencies."

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy has been arrested in connection with a series of slayings of prostitutes who sold sex for drugs in South-Central Los Angeles, a source close to the investigation said late Thursday. The deputy, whose identity was not disclosed, was arrested while driving an official county vehicle about midnight Wednesday by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department's 77th Street Division, the source said.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates angrily accused City Councilman Robert Farrell and County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn on Friday of making "divisive, counterproductive and demoralizing" comments about the abilities of detectives assigned to the Southside Serial Killer Task Force.

Los Angeles Police Commissioner Barbara L. Schlei and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates joined Tuesday in pledging that there will be no reduction in the number of detectives assigned to investigate the slayings of 17 women in and near the South-Central area of the city. Their statements came at a commission meeting at which Margaret Prescod, a frequent critic of the department's investigation, charged that there is "a feeling among women that you don't care, that our lives don't count."

Several prostitutes have been found dead in South-Central Los Angeles, police said Thursday, adding that "an effort is being made" to caution women who fit the victims' profile "to watch out." The case is the second involving the serial killing of prostitutes in the area in recent years, and the leader of a coalition that prodded authorities to investigate the first string of slayings more diligently harshly criticized investigators for keeping a lid of secrecy on their probe.

A veteran sheriff's narcotics officer was arrested for investigation of the murders of three prostitutes after being stopped while allegedly sharing cocaine with a street walker in his car, authorities said Friday. Deputy Rickey Ross, 40, an 18-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, was picked up at 1:30 a.m. Thursday by police officers patrolling the South-Central area, police Chief Daryl Gates said.

Nearly two years after it was formed, a police-sheriff task force created to catch the killers of South Los Angeles prostitutes has been drastically reduced in strength as leads in the baffling case have all but dried up. At its peak last year, 50 members of the Los Angeles Police Department were assigned full-time to the so-called Southside Slayer Task Force. On Wednesday, task force leader Lt. John L.