Informants: Working Hard or Hardly Working

When I first started out as a young police detective, I would spend hundreds of hours, often times for naught, trying to solve a heinous or complex crime.  After a while, I discovered that if I spent about fifteen minutes with the right person, in the right place, and maybe throw in a cigarette and a candy bar, I could often crack the case.  In investigating terms, the right person was an informant.  This goes for both police detectives and private investigators.  Often times there is someone out there who has knowledge of the case, but you have to use the right approach and do it in the right location, in order to get the right results. 

Try not to let police movies or TV cloud your vision of how to work an informant.  You don’t approach someone on the street and expect them to talk to you.  By doing this, it also shows your lack of knowledge of the street and you won’t be trusted.  For police detectives, an individual can be interviewed back at the police station or in the lock up. 

I used to scan the daily arrest logs to see if anyone got arrested near one of the crimes I was investigating, or if any of my informants had managed to get themselves locked up.  I’d talk to the detective that was handling the individual’s current arrest to clear it with him, and then I’d go and talk to him.  It’s amazing how many arrestees, knowing that their looking at going back to prison, will talk to you if you have the right approach.  You have to be able to convince them that you will protect them and not reveal their identity.  Start small, and once they give something up that appears to be good, that’s when they get rewarded with the coffee or soda.  The more they give up, and the bigger the case, is when the candy bars and cigarettes come out.  Remember, they get the goodies after they cooperate, not before.

The same holds for private investigators.  You can meet with a possible cooperative informant off-site from his workplace or home.  Whether you’re a cop or a PI, you always pick the time and location.  You want to make sure you’re not being setup.

Different motivations motivate different people to give up information.  It can be fear, revenge, retaliation, power, honesty etc.  You need to find which one is the one that turns your informant.  Find the right one, and your case can be solved.

Homicide Rates in the City of Angels

When people talk about homicide rates, I always tell them about the Homicide division I worked in back in the late 1980’s for the Los Angeles Police Department. The police division was the 77^th Street Division, which was located in South Central Los Angeles.  There were seven teams of homicide detectives with a total of 14 detectives along with one detective supervisor.  In 1987 there were 160 murders in that division alone, which is the most for any one police division in the city’s history.  Again, that was not the city wide homicide count; it was just our division’s.  I believe there were 18 LAPD geographical police divisions at the time. It was not uncommon for one team that had the weekend on call in 77^th Division to have two or three homicides over a weekend.

There is no other way to put it, but that 77^th Division was a violent area.  It was the divisional policy to call out a homicide team only if the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.  There were shootings, stabbings, bludgeoning’s and beatings etc. almost daily.  Many of these crimes were gang related with Crips and Blood gangs shooting each other with regularity.  The term ‘drive-by shooting’ became a household word.  On many of these occasions the victim(s) miraculously survived.  Those serious crimes were the victim(s) lived were handled by the crimes against persons (CAPS) unit.  If homicide detectives had to roll out for every serious crime that occurred in the division where the victim was still alive they would have completely worn us out.  It is truly amazing how resilient the human body is and how much punishment it can take. 

I recall on one occasion where we were called out because the victim had been stabbed in the heart and another where the victim had been shot multiple times, including one to the head, and they were still alive but in critical division.   The sergeants at both crime scenes felt that the victims were going to expire and called us out.   We worked all through the night and into the next day conducting the crime scene investigations, canvassing the area and interviewing witnesses.  In both cases the victims survived.  The cases were then turned over to CAPS detectives.  Our case load was too intense to handle anything other than homicides.

It also seemed that no one died till after midnight.  When you had the weekend on-call duty, you’d try not to work overtime on Friday and get home and jump into bed for a few hours’ sleep.  The phone calls from the watch commander’s office notifying us of a murder always seemed to come between midnight and 4:00 AM.  You never got enough sleep, you were always working overtime trying to solve cases, and when you did you were constantly in court for preliminary hearings and murder trials.  

You also knew that you and your partner were the only ones that could obtain justice for the victim.

THE ETAN PATZ CASE

A 33 year old missing person’s case in New York City is again drawing international headlines. On May 25, 1979, six year old Etan Patz disappeared on his way to school.  His photograph was the first missing child to appear on milk cartons.  Although the case has been widely publicized throughout the years, no arrests were ever made.  Recently, however, news reports have stated that NYPD detectives had interviewed an individual in New Jersey and he had confessed to the crime. These same reports stated that the suspect had discarded the victim’s body in a trash bag in the garbage.

From an investigative stand point, this is an extremely difficult case.  First and foremost, you’re dealing with a criminal case that is 33 years old.  Secondly, the victim’s remains have never been recovered.  Witnesses may be difficult to locate, some of the detectives who worked on the case could be deceased, possible crime scenes may have been renovated or destroyed, case files could be misplaced, evidence could be compromised etc.  The neighborhood where the crime took place could be severely altered after so much time has passed.

If the suspect has supposedly confessed to the detectives, probably the most important part of the interrogation from a prosecutorial standpoint is if the suspect told the detectives things that only the killer would know.  Police detectives will always attempt to hold back from the public important details in a crime for just that reason.  It’s not uncommon to have people confess to notorious crimes.  It’s when you get down to specific issues that are unique to that specific crime is how detectives can weed out the sensation seekers from the real suspect.

The job facing the NYPD detectives will be going back and trying to recreate a crime scene from information obtained from the confession.  They will go over everything the suspect told them to see if they can find any type of physical evidence or eyewitness accounts to match his story.  They will be going over New York City Sanitation records to attempt to find out any information regarding trash pickup on the specific date and location that the suspect provided them.  They’ll attempt to locate the truck driver and any sanitation workers that were on the route on that day.  They’ll even go over city dump records in an attempt to locate the specific location in the dump where that specific truck off loaded its contents.

Attempting to file a criminal case against a defendant without any evidence other than a confession would be difficult at best.  The tragedy begins all over again for the victim’s family, who are again thrust into the limelight because of this horrible crime.

Get out of the office

As a private investigator, do you ever find yourself spending too much time in your office?  It is a necessary evil, what with writing reports, making calls, doing computer searches, sending out invoices, marketing clients etc.  But sometimes I think we can become chained to that office chair.  What’s more, I believe some of an investigator’s most important skills can erode because of it.

Let’s take interviews for example.  One of the most important skills an investigator can possess is that of interviewing.  It’s how we gain critical information which helps us solve cases.  How often have you foregone a personal interview for a phone one?  Oh sure, it’s quick and easy.  But there’s a price to be paid.  It is difficult to develop a rapport with a witness in a phone interview.  Your just a faceless voice on a phone.  How many times have you hung up the phone and realized you didn’t ask an important question or you felt pressed for time.   

In an in-person interview, I’ll spend 10/15 minutes talking to the person about their home, garden, hobby etc. before I get into the interview itself. People love to talk about things that interest them, and they become relaxed with your presence.  You can get a lot more information that way then just going right into questioning them.  You’re also developing and maintaining your people skills.

I think in this technology age we have a tendency to rely too much on the computer.  Don’t get me wrong, computers are great.  They have made our lives and our jobs infinitely easier.  But there is a price to pay, and that is we can become office bound.  If you don’t develop and utilize your people skills, you’ll lose them.

Being out of the office and on the street is like exercise.  You feel better, think clearer, and most important, you can make things happen.  I can’t tell you how many important interviews I got, how many neighbor tips I received, and how many important witnesses I was able to subpoena just because I went out there and did something.

I had a veteran police detective tell me when I first started out as an investigator that you don’t solve cases by sitting in your office waiting for the phone to ring.  You have to go out there and make things happen.  So push yourself away from that desk, turn off your computer, grab that case file and get out there and do something!  You’ll feel better for it and you’ll solve cases.

CRIMINAL DEFENSE IN A TRIAL BY PUBLIC OPINION

How do you defend someone in a criminal case that has been played out in the national press for the last two months?  How do you find a jury made up of people who have not been swayed one way or another by the constant attention in this case by the media?   When was the last time you saw the press describe a defendant as a ‘White Hispanic’? How can you get a fair trial for your client when this case has been commented on and analyzed by elected officials, media pundits and group leaders? That’s the task the defense attorneys of defendant George Zimmerman have in the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, and it is very tall one.  The task is made that much more difficult when so many emotional issues are thrown into the mix.

There have been cases throughout history where public opinion has been so inflamed that that the guilt of the accused party was a foregone conclusion, even before the trial began.  For starters, look at the Dreyfus Affair in France and the Atlanta bombing case of Richard Jewel.  In the former, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason for selling military information to the Germans.  He was convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devils Island.  After a number of years in confinement, he was exonerated and reinstated back into the French Army.

In the latter case, Jewel was a security guard at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.  Discovering a bomb at the site, he alerted the police and helped clear the area of people before the bomb exploded.  Even though there was loss of life due to the bomb, he was credited with saving many lives and initially called a hero for his actions.  He later came under suspicion as a possible suspect and although never arrested, had his life ruined by all the media attention.  Another suspect was eventually arrested and convicted, and Jewel was completely exonerated.

I don’t know if George Zimmerman is guilty or innocent of the charges against him.  I do know that here in America, it is every individual’s right to a fair trial before a jury of his peers based on the facts and evidence presented.  I just hope that after all this media attention they can find twelve objective citizens who will decide his fate.

UTILIZING FORENSICS

When I first started out working homicide, I was at a crime scene with a forensic team that was assisting us in the crime scene investigation.  One of the items of interest in this case happened to be a box that had fallen from either a table or a shelf to the floor.  I remember that the Forensic team kept running multiple test experiments with the box to see if it fell in the exact place each time.  When I questioned them, they advised me they were testing to see if it always fell in the same place or if it had been moved there by the suspect.

Forensic people look at things from a scientific and analytical viewpoint.  If something happened to a person, item etc., there must be a cause and effect as to how a it happened.  Could a body weighing the same as a suicide victim have hung themselves from a certain height and item (Pole, railing, shower rod etc.) without the item breaking or falling?  Could a spent cartridge at a shooting scene have landed in a certain location?  Could a left handed suspect have stabbed an individual incurring the same wounds as the stabbing victim?  Could a pry tool allegedly used by burglary suspect have made the same indentations as the ones at your crime scene?  Forensic people are always running tests to see if this is the case.

Whether you’re a police detective or a private investigator, the key thing to take away from this is don’t just assume that everything at a crime scene or accident scene is as it should be.  Question things!  If necessary, seek out experts.

DEATH INVESTIGATIONS

One area of investigative work that a private investigator can be utilized in is death investigations.  Often times the family of a decedent has suspicions regarding their loved ones death and question the finding of the police and/or coroner’s office.  After interviewing the client, the private investigator should obtain and review any police reports, autopsy reports and photographs that are available.  A key step in the investigation is an examination of the death scene.  This can sometimes occur days, months or even years after the death.  It is still critically important to view the death location.  Even though some things may have changed at the location, you still need to conduct an on-site examination.  Is what you see at the location consistent with what’s in the reports? Has anything changed?  Is anything wrong?   Is the manner and cause of death listed in the reports consistent to what you see at the scene?  Do the events portrayed in the reports match up with the evidence you see at the scene?  Are there any errors in the report?  Could the decedent have met his demise the way it’s portrayed in the reports?


There is always the possibility that evidence could have been overlooked by the police at the scene, so if you find anything that you think could be of evidentiary value, be sure to photograph it before recovering it.  Take your own photographs, measurements and diagram.  Remember that oftentimes the only police presence at a death not immediately classified as a homicide is usually patrol officers who may not have a lot of experience in death investigations.  Take nothing for granted while you are out there.  If possible, try to conduct your examination of the scene at the same time as the estimated time of death.  Lighting at the scene could play an important part in the investigation and in witnesses’ accounts.


An added benefit to conducting a death scene examination is that it will greatly assist you when you are interviewing family members and potential witnesses.  Be sure to have the diagram and photographs to available to show witnesses.  Try to interview the police officers, paramedics and coroner’s investigator that were at the scene.  They may or may not talk to you, but it’s worth a try.

AN INVESTIGATOR’S MOST IMPORTANT TRAIT

I have been asked many times what did I consider the most important trait an investigator can possess.  After many years in the investigative business, and working with many outstanding police detectives and private investigators, I believe the one trait the best ones all have is persistence.  The best way I can describe it is with the technique of canvassing a neighborhood looking for an eyewitness to an incident.  It is boring, it is time consuming, and you are constantly going from door to door with negative results.  But like I told a client recently, if you find just one eyewitness, you can break your case wide open.  If you knock on 49 doors with negative results, you keep going to the 50^th one and hope to strike pay dirt.  Its going through reams of documents, its spending hours on the phone, it’s pouring through old records and court cases, just looking for that one nugget that will make your case. Its continuing to interrogate a suspect after you haven’t gotten anywhere in 2 hours, and finally asking the right question and getting a confession. Its the plodding, by the numbers, slow and steady investigators that consistently solve cases.

UNDERCOVER WORK AND DISGUISES

How do you make yourself blend in to your surroundings?  How do you dress if you’re doing foot surveillance or you’re undercover in a specific location and you don’t want to be ‘made’?  Most cops who start out in undercover work immediately grow a beard and long hair.  It’s almost a dead giveaway, like an undercover uniform.  When you see a neatly scrubbed guy with a trimmed beard, long hair, baseball cap, Pendleton shirt and jeans with clean hands and often times a wedding ring in a high crime area, it’s usually a cop. 

I got to be good at disguises when I worked Hollywood Vice and other undercover assignments with the LAPD Metropolitan Division.  When I started out in plainclothes undercover work I thought, “Where would be the best place to look at lots of people and figure out who didn’t look like a cop?”  Answer:  The local mall.  I would go down there and just sit for an hour or so and watch all the people walk by.  I’d take notes on individuals regarding how they dressed, walked and what things they carried.  Pretty soon I came up with a number of disguises that I tested in the field.  The hardest people to fool in those days were the street walkers in Hollywood, so if I could fool them, I could fool anybody.  Here’s a list of just some that I used:

1. Car accident victim-I wore a whiplash neck brace.  For added effect, I would put a plaster cast (taped) on my non-shooting hand.  If I had someone in the car, I would act like I had difficulty turning my head.

2 .Crutches-I’d practice walking with crutches so I had the gait down.  I’d also use a taped on plaster foot cast for added effect.

3. Emergency room scrubs-I put on a pair of scrubs with a stethoscope in my pocket as I drove or walked around.

4. Baseball Uniform-During baseball season I’d put on a baseball uniform and have a bag of bats, balls and a glove or two in the car.

5. Workout clothes-Shorts, sweatshirt or T shirt, towel around the neck and gym bag with a racquetball paddle sticking out. I’d also have a dirty towel along with wet socks and T shirt in the bag.

6. During an interior bank stakeout, I was dressed in a dark suit and tie sitting at a desk in the bank.  I had a shotgun between my legs along with a handgun in the wastebasket next to me.  I also had another gun on my hip.

7. Passed out drunk-On one occasion I had to be the guarding officer for an undercover female officer on a ‘Trick’ task force.  I wore an old watch cap, my old Marine Corps horse blanket overcoat, rubbed in axle grease around my face and hands, rubbed on some cheap wine for aftershave, and for the piece de resistance, mixed wine and oatmeal in a bag and poured it on the ground when I ‘passed out’ just a few feet away from the undercover female on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood.  Pedestrians literally stepped over me like I was part of the scenery.

8. Homeless-Working undercover with my partner in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, I dressed in an old Navy pea coat, watch cap, unshaven beard, dirty jeans, and carried a sleeping bag tied by some rope over my shoulder.  We followed two car burglars for over three hours before they broke into a car and we arrested.

9. Santa Claus outfit-I arrested 4 different prostitutes who propositioned me on Christmas Eve driving around in a Santa Claus outfit.  I even put a pillow under my costume to have the fat man look. 

Here’s the bottom line regarding disguises; the sky's the limit. Use your imagination and have some fun in the process.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU LOSE A VEHICLE TAIL

What do you do when you lose your Subject?  Believe me; if you do enough surveillances, it’s inevitably going to happen.  Especially on one person vehicle surveillances, there is no margin of error.  Sometimes you don’t make it through a red light, or the Subject’s vehicle makes a lane change and you’re suddenly cut off, or traffic swallows you up and you lose sight of the vehicle.  You try to plan for every contingency, but things happen. Whatever the reason, if you lose sight of the Subject’s vehicle, the first thing to try to remember is not to panic.   Often time you can find the Subject once you resume travel, so keep driving.  Look down the side streets your passing and you might spot his vehicle.  There’s a good chance that another upcoming light will have stopped him.  If you still can’t spot him, try a quick search of the area to see if he pulled over and parked.  Here’s also where a good information briefing with you client beforehandreally helps. When the client is initially providing you all the information he has on the Subject to be followed, make sure you ask the client where the Subject may be going when you’re tailing him. This is when that information will oftentimes pay off if you’ve lost him.  Head to that location now and you just might find the Subject there.  If you still don’t find him, return to the original surveillance location to see if the Subject has returned.  Give it some time, and he might just show back up.

HOW I STARTED MY PRIVATE INVESTIGATIVE CAREER

I initially obtained my PI license while still an active LAPD police officer more as a lark the anything else.  I never thought about using it, especially while I was still on the job.  It was more along the lines of an interesting topic of conversation.  One day while I was a detective I was sitting at the prosecution table as the investigating officer on a case.  During the pause in the preceding, I happened to pull out my newly arrived PI license.  The Assistant District Attorney who was prosecuting the case was one whom I had assisted in a number of cases throughout my career and knew my abilities.  When she asked me about it, I told her I had just gotten my license.  She then asked me if I was going to use it.  I told her I really hadn’t thought much about actively using it while I was still on the job.  She then went on to tell me that her husband was the senior partner in a Los Angeles civil law firm that had trouble finding any good private investigators.  She told me she was going to have him contact me.  Sure enough, a few days later, he called me and asked if I would be interested in working with him on a large civil case.  From that point on I received a steady flow of civil cases and referrals to other attorneys.  Divine intervention, fate, luck, whatever you want to call it, my life was changed in a fateful moment.

HOW DO INVESTIGATORS FIND WITNESSES

You’ve been hired to investigate an incident that took place 3 months prior.  Let’s say it’s a traffic accident.  It occurred on a specific day at a specific time.  How do you go about finding any witnesses to the accident, particularly if it happened some time ago.  In a case like this, you go back to the tried and true old fashion way, you conduct a canvass of the area.

Time permitting, it’s very important that you conduct your witness canvass on the same day of the week and at the same time that the incident happened.  Let me give an example of what I mean.  An attorney hired me to investigate a traffic accident.  The accident took place on a weekend night shortly after midnight.  It occurred on Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood.  I went there on the same day of the week and began my canvass about a half hour before the accident occurred.  There were a few stores still open, and I happened to find an employee at one of the businesses who happened to be looking out the window and saw the accident.  Because he was a night time employee, I never would have found him if I had gone out in the daytime to canvass. 

Another reason you want to go out at the same time as the incident is that you can see what the lighting in the area was like at the time of the incident along with the pedestrian and vehicle traffic.  This gives you a much better feel for the incident scene similar to when it occurred. You also may find a witness on a delivery truck or other work related vehicle that happens to stop by around the time of your incident.  As I’ve stated before on this blog, you only need to find one witness to break a case wide open. 

MORE ON WALKING SURVEILLANCES

Here are some additional tips on conducting walking surveillances.  You don’t have to be on the same side of the street to follow someone.  I find it’s actually more advantageous to walk on the opposite side of the street when following someone.  Even when they’re ‘hinked up’ and looking for a tail, they usually only look behind and rarely if ever look across the street.  Try putting An object between yourself and the subject.  The best one is a parked car.  You can stand to the rear of a parked car and peer through the rear & front windows of the vehicle and observe an individual for a long distance without exposing yourself.  You can also use mailboxes, telephone poles or any other object that’s handy.  If there’s a bus bench around, sit down and enjoy the rest while you take in the subject.  Use store windows as mirrors and building entrances to mask your profile.  You can also walk pass the Subject and and view him as he walks by.  A great way to do that is to enter a store and then watch him through the window. 

My partner and I once followed two car burglars on foot during the Christmas shopping season for over 3 hours in downtown Los Angeles before they finally hit a car.  It was in the business district and there were numerous pedestrians, parked vehicles and open air parking lots along the streets.  They cased a number of vehicles but for some reason would back off on each one.  They finally went into a parking lot where they quickly punched the trunk lock with a screwdriver, removed the stored gifts and closed the trunk, all within a few seconds. They were surprised to say the least when my partner and I appeared from out of nowhere and hooked them up.  Remember, patience and good tactics are the key to any successful surveillance.

HOW TO DO WALKING SURVEILLANCES

Most PI’s do a lot of vehicle surveillances, but there will usually come a time when you’ll be out of a car and have to follow a subject on foot.  The first thing to keep in mind is to dress according to the neighborhood.  It’s wise to carry an extra set of clothes in your vehicle in case where you’re going doesn’t fit what you’re currently wearing.  Try to wear comfortable walking shoes.  I prefer black ones, because they can also pass for dress shoes if you have to go upscale.  Wear neutral colored clothing.  Don’t wear bright colors like red or orange that will make you stick out.  I also like to wear dark colored baseball hats without a logo.  You can take it off and stick it in your pocket for a different look.  When following someone on foot, the most important thing is to know how the subject looks from behind.  Rarely will you be in front of him/her to see their face.  The next important thing is to pay attention to the subject’s walking gait, because that’s what you’ll be keying on, especially in a crowd.  Don’t be too close to the subject.  Remember that you can only have to see a small portion of the subject and still successfully follow him.  I once followed an individual who was carrying a black gym bag in his hand on a busy downtown street.  At times all I could see was a portion of the bag, yet I was able to follow him successfully. 

VEHICLE SURVEILLANCE EQUIPMENT YOU NEED

Here are some of the actual surveillance tools you’ll need for your vehicle..  Have a small tape recorder available because you won’t have the time to be writing things down like license numbers, addresses or descriptions. Whether you’re parked or driving, you can dictate right into the recorder.  Keep a pen and paper handy for when you have time to write things down.  You need some type of binoculars for distance viewing.  I like to have both binoculars and a monocular.  I find the latter is great if you’re sitting in the front seat of your vehicle and you don’t want to be obvious by using binoculars. A monocular is small and used with one hand.  Make sure you have a number of coins handy in case you have to use metered parking.   Have a good video and single shot camera that you’re familiar with.  For camera use, I suggest at least a 70-300 lens.  It’s also a good idea to have a tri-pod that you can use for shots focused on one spot.  This stabilizes the camera for better pictures.  Be sure that you have charged the batteries on both your video and single shot camera.  If you do a lot of surveillance work, you might want to think about getting a portable air conditioner that you can run off of the cigarette lighter in the vehicle.  Sitting inside a vehicle with the windows closed, especially during the dog days of summer, can be brutal.  Bring some pillows to prop up against the seat for extra comfort.  Lastly, make sure you have a change of clothes and a baseball hat in case you need to change clothing and/or your appearance.

THE BEST DETERRENT TO COP KILLING

As a brand new officer with the LAPD, I was fortunate to have as a training officer the best street cop I ever worked with, and I worked with a lot of them.  This was the first night I ever worked with him.  As it was getting close to End of Watch, we started the perennial circling pattern near the station so when the on-coming shift came down we’d get in quick.  It was near midnight and we were driving in a residential neighborhood when we both noticed two men peering into the picture window of the corner house.  Even though I had only a few months on the job, I knew something wasn’t right.  My training officer stopped the car, and we both jumped out with our guns drawn.  The two men both started walking away from the house in different directions.  As we yelled for them to freeze, they both reached into their waistbands and tossed guns on us.  After proning them out on the ground and calling for backup, they were taken into custody without further incident.

Once we got them back to the station, my training officer interviewed them separately with me just sitting there.  One of them confessed that they were hit men sent out from the East Coast to kill the people who lived in that house.  He was a parolee and had done a lot of prison time back east.  My training officer asked him, what with his prior record, the fact that he was on parole and had a gun, and knowing he would go back to prison again for this, why didn’t he shoot it out with us.  I will never forget what the suspect said.  He told my partner, “You both came out of the police car with your guns out, and you were ready.  I didn’t want to die!”  My training officer then told him, “Your right.  We’d of shot you down like a dog in the street.”

After we booked them, I talked to my training officer about that conversation.  He told me that every time he got a gun off of a suspect, he would always ask them why they didn’t shoot it out and try to get away.  Invariably they’d say something like you were ready, or it wasn’t worth it, but whatever the reason they’d initially give, they’d usually end by saying they didn’t want to die.  He would give them that signature line about being shot down like a dog in the street to make an imprint on their mind.  He told me, “Someday that guy may have the drop on some cop. I want him to think about the consequences and what’s going to happen to him if he kills a cop.  I figure someday that will save a cop’s life.”

From that day on every time I got a gun off of a suspect, I had the same conversation and told him the same thing.  I’m sure there’s more then one cop walking around alive today because a suspect who had a gun and had the drop on him hesitated when he thought of the consequences.

PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS FROM THE BUSINESS END 102

You’re a newly licensed PI, and now you’re looking for clients.  Of course you get nice business cards and letterhead done (Hint:  Use good bonded paper and have it done by a professional printer).  Start reading books and articles about running a small business.  Read up on marketing and advertising.  Join one of your state’s professional investigative associations.  Attend their meetings and networking with experienced investigators.  Most are only too willing to help out a new person in the field.  Join the association’s List Serve. It’s an invaluable way to gain knowledge and also to ask questions about issues that com up in your work.  Attend your association's seminars.  You will not only learn a great deal, but it's another way to network with other investigators.  When starting out and things are slow, try to gain sub-contract work from a reputable, experience PI.   Once you’ve established your work with them, ask them if they wouldn’t mind helping you learn the business end of the work.  I was fortunate after I retired to have two PIs mentor me.  One is flamboyant, colorful, larger than life, and the best business mind I know in this field.  He is also a very under rated investigator.  The other runs a large firm and has an extremely professional operation.  Both were very generous of their time in teaching me the business end of private investigations.  Lastly, have ethics in this business.  When someone helps you as a mentor, don’t be a dog and then turn around and try to steal their clients.

HOW TO DO WALKING SURVEILLANCES

Most PI’s do a lot of vehicle surveillances, but there will usually come a time when you’ll be out of a car and have to follow a subject on foot.  The first thing to keep in mind is to dress according to the neighborhood. It’s wise to carry an extra set of clothes in your vehicle in case where you’re going doesn’t fit with what you’re currently wearing.  Try to wear comfortable walking shoes.  I prefer black ones, because they can also pass for dress shoes if you have to go upscale.  Wear neutral colored clothing.  Don’t wear bright colors like red or orange that will make you stick out.  I also like to have handy a dark colored baseball hats without a logo. You can put it on or take it off and it gives you a different look.  When following someone on foot, the most important thing is to know how the subject looks from behind.  Rarely will you be in front of him/her to see their face.  The next important thing is to pay attention to the subject’s walking gait, because that’s what you’ll be keying on, especially in a crowd.  Don’t be too close to the subject.  Remember that you can only have to see a small portion of the subject and still successfully follow him.  I once followed an individual who was carrying a black gym bag in his hand on a busy downtown street.  At times all I could see was a portion of the bag, yet I was able to follow him successfully.  Keep in mind that most people are oblivious to their surroundings and are totally unaware someone is following them.

GETTING STARTED IN THE PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS BUSINESS

If you're ’re a newly licensed PI, and now you’re looking for clients.  Of course you get nice business cards and letterhead done (Hint:  Use good bonded paper and have it done by a professional printer).  Start reading books and articles about running a small business.  Read up on marketing and advertising.  Join one of your state’s professional investigative associations.  Start networking with experienced investigators.  Most are only too willing to help out a new person in the field.  Join the association’s List Serve.  It’s an invaluable way to gain knowledge and also to ask questions about issues that com up in your work.  When starting out and things are slow, try to gain sub-contract work from a reputable, experienced PI.   Once you’ve established your work with them, ask them if they wouldn’t mind helping you learn the business end of the work.  I was fortunate after I retired to have two PIs mentor me.  One was flamboyant, colorful, larger than life, and the best business mind I know in this field.  He is also a very under rated investigator.  The other runs a large firm and has an extremely professional operation.  Both were very generous of their time in teaching me the business end of private investigations.  Lastly, have ethics in this business.  When someone helps you as a mentor, don’t be a dog and then turn around and try to steal their clients.

DEALING WITH THE POLICE

How do you deal with the police when you’re a PI? What do you do if you’ve never been a police officer, yet you need to work with them or get information from them on one of your cases? Here’s what I suggest. First try to contact a police officer or detective that you know who works the same department as the detective handling your case. Ask him/her for an introduction to the police officer your trying to contact. If you don’t know it already, cops are very clannish. It always helps to have a gatekeeper. Once you have a contact person on your case, try to go in person. I always find that it’s a lot harder for someone to blow me off in person then it is on the phone. Here’s another helpful hint.The best time to contact a police detective is between 7/8:00 AM. They usually try to get a jump on their paperwork and case load at that time before they head out to court or the field. Once you actually get to speak with the detective, don’t be intimidated. Most detectives will be helpful, especially if you have something to give them that will help them in a case. Once they’ve warmed up to you in person, they’ll often tell you things they normally wouldn’t tell you over the phone. Here’s another tip: Every detective bureau has its share of slugs and do-nothings; but, they usually have one or two hard working street detectives who know all the bad guys, the crime patterns in their area, and will work their tails off with any information you can provide them. The trick here is you have to find that one. If you don’t know anyone in that department and, or, division, try to find a veteran uniformed officer, identify yourself, and ask him point blank, “Who’s the best street cop in the detective bureau?” That’s the guy you want to deal with.