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Webster's Dictionary defines intelligence as information concerning an

enemy or possible enemy or an area.


Another definition is the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or
trying situations.
Surveillance is defined as close watch kept over someone or something.
Here is a hint; one of the best ways to build usable gang intelligence to fight
gangs is through surveillance.
SPI
When I joined the Intelligence Unit of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department
it was called Special Investigations (SPI). Yes, spy. SPI once held files or real
intelligence on criminal organizations, subversive extremists, motorcycle
gangs, prison gangs, and dirty politicians. Los Angeles Sheriff Peter J.
Pitches had been an FBI Agent before becoming the L.A. Sheriff. He worked
under the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Unlike most of today's sheriffs and
chiefs of police, he actually understood the value of surveillance and
intelligence.
Sheriff Pitches built up this intelligence unit and had a representative from
the SPI unit brief him personally each week. The SPI Unit bypassed the
normal bureaucratic department's ridgid chain of command. In the LASD
organizational chart of that day, SPI answered directly to the Sheriff.
After the Vietnam War spying became unpopular with the American culture.
At least that's how the media painted the picture. Intelligence units and their
valuable files fell under attack from the ACLU and other powerful subversive
groups. They attacked these files supposedly to protect "Joe Citizen" from
"Big Brother" and his domestic spies. The truth was that your average Joe
Citizen's name never really appeared in any of these intelligence files, but
lots of crooked politicians' names did.
Lawyers and plaintiffs won restrictive case law decisions against some police
intelligence units. State and federal legislators, to protect their own
backroom antics, also tried to limit the intelligence and surveillance abilities

of the police. State and federal attorney generals' offices ordered restrictions
limiting police wire tap and other intelligence gathering programs and
mandated the purging of intelligence files.
Local police and sheriffs found maintaining large intelligence units
increasingly more difficult. Many cities abdicated their criminal intelligence
duties and relied instead on the bureaucratic federal agencies. Local
Intelligence units like SPI were gutted or skeletonized.
In my opinion this loss in local police intelligence resulted in the explosive
growth of organized criminal gangs on the streets. We were fighting gangs
blindfolded by the lack of important intelligence. If those local intelligence
units existed today, even international terrorist cells would be more quickly
located and identified. The terrorists operating in small and medium cities
would stand out to local units and the investigators who would have already
been in place.
Utilize Intelligence
Whether you work in "Small Town" U.S.A. or "Mega Metropolis," intelligence
is the key to how effectively you can direct your limited resources against
gangs. There are many sources for this information; interviews,
interrogations, informants, and search warrants are all ways to build your
gang intelligence file. I suggest you utilize the best of your current
information and set up regular surveillance operations. You should spy.
Static and Active Surveillance
Static surveillance is probably the easiest to use. Commit a couple of people
to watch the gang hangouts. Photograph gang members and their vehicles.
Look for a neighborhood home or other location that can be used as an
observation post. I have used church bell towers, abandoned houses, "cherry
picker" cranes, mobile homes, empty project apartments, and vehicles
disguised as plumbing trucks and UPS vans. Be creative.
There are two schools of thought in the use of static surveillances; one
theory says that this should be a passive monitoring of the group for
intelligence gathering only, not as an opportunity to make arrests. Arresting

any of the subjects might "burn" the surveillance and possibly give away the
observation points, some say.
I prefer the second school of thought, active surveillance. Give the officers in
the observation point (OP) a radio and assign a marked police unit to act on
the information. If the surveillance team observes something of interest,
they can radio to the marked unit to make the vehicle or pedestrian stop
several blocks from the observation area. Arrests also produce good
intelligence. With care this can be done without giving away the OP.
Electronic Surveillance
Can't afford to tie up three or four officers in a static surveillance? Electronic
surveillance is another easy way to build intelligence files. Try a hidden time
lapse camera. All you good deer hunters know what I mean. You can buy
these digital cameras and set them up to snap photos every half-hour or so.
Buy a fake hollow decorative garden rock and mount a camera in it. Set it up
during the night and let it go. This can also be done from an unoccupied
parked car, or a tree on the parkway. With just a little probable cause you
can have a "pole camera" set up on a telephone pole across from gang
central.
Electronic surveillance includes wire taps, or "Title III" operations in the
federal jargon. There is one place that allows you to monitor gang members
without having to write a lengthy wiretap warrant. Most state and federal
prisons and county jails usually have systems in place that routinely monitor
telephone calls of bad guys. Monitor the telephone calls coming from the
gang unit or discipline row because that's where the best calls come from.
Mobile Covert Surveillance Team
If your department can afford the expense and manpower, I suggest a
mobile covert seven-person surveillance team. A sergeant and six officers,
each with a radio in an individual non-police-looking vehicle, are the basic
components of the team.
Unlike what's often depicted in movies or on TV, one or two people cannot
sustain a covert surveillance for any length of time. The optimum team

would actually have 10 people: enough personnel to cover vacation relief


and the ability to break a few officers from the team out for foot surveillance
if that is required. Ten officers also provide a good number for their role as
an entry team at most locations. But having experience as a team supervisor
trying to sell the concept of a 10-officer team to my brass (even in an 8,000strong department), I suggest starting with a seven-officer team.
However, this seven-officer surveillance team should quickly produce results.
I operated in a team like this for 20 years. When SPI investigators didn't
have a target for us, gang parole units did, and homicide detectives also
regularly utilized our team. Over the years we wound up arresting or having
some part in the takedown of almost every major suspect in Los Angeles.
This included most of the infamous leaders of the Crips and Bloods, the
Mexican Mafia, Aryan Brotherhood, and most of the motorcycle gangs. Add
to that the arrests of drug cartel leaders, and serial killers like Richard
Ramirez.
The seven-officer team utilized all the previously mentioned tactics plus
mobile covert and overt surveillances. Sometimes the most effective
surveillance is an obvious one. My team operated in this overt style for
several months while working the outgoing mayor of Compton, before he
was sentenced to prison, and who was also a Blood gang member.
The mobile surveillance team operates like a small Special Forces team. Its
flexibility and ability to customize a response to suit the threat cannot be
duplicated in any other team configuration. No detective unit, SWAT team, or
special problems team compares to the covert surveillance team concept.
The cost in manpower and budget is quickly offset by the damage this team
can inflict on the targeted gangs.
Drug Trafficking Organized Crime groups and International Gangs are
national and international threats to the very fabric of our society. It is time
to utilize your best secret weapons, your 007 types, and your best electronic
spying technology against them.
Tags: intel, surveillance, gangs, wire tap, drug trafficking, organized crime

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Comments (3)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3
walkin' trails @ 2/21/2009 7:38 AM

This article really summed up a lot of issues I've been wondering about lately. From my point of
view, there has been too much emphasis placed on electronic surveillance, with so much effort made
to downplay and even eliminate the human intelligence gathering. Add to that territoral disputes and
distrust between various LE agencies within an area of operation, and even within an agency. How
many of us belong to agencies with enforcement groups that are already loosly structured to resemble
the "mobile surveillance team" Sergeant Valdemar describes, yet have either lost sight of the original
concept or have never had the leadership or training necessary to build such a team? How many
agencies train their supervisors and senior enforcement personnel to organize and lead such a team?
And on the subject of intelligence in general, I can go on and on from my own experiences and
observations, but there isn't enough space. This was a great article, and I would like to see Sgt.
Valdemar expand on the subject by discussing more in detail the basic structure, individual team

members' roles, and training for a special purpose team.


David Moore S-55 @ 2/22/2009 6:10 PM

Excellent, its easy to see lots of work went into this article, from the many years in this area, solid
tactics-operations that worked. Reading this last night left me with a new outlook on this very serious
problem of today, and knowing something that in the morning I did not. That is to be part of the
solution or part of the problem as spelled out. The key to success or failure as Sergeant Valdemar,
pointed out is Operations Security or in DOD terms OPSEC. We must also keep in mind, what we
can do unto others, they can do unto us! With that in mind two recommendations: (1).
http://www/ioss.gov MAINTAINING OPERATIONAL SECURITY: Minimizing the Risk of Law
Enforcement Mission Failure as it relates to the protection of law enforcement operations. (Go to
Publications section or do a search for this) Interagency OPSEC Support Staff and L&O Magazine
Vol 44, No 10 October 1996. by John E. Glorioso and Robert B. Ritter. (2).
http://www.varropress.com/ LAW ENFORCEMENT COUNTERINTELLIGENCE Lawrence B.
Sulc
skinni99 @ 3/14/2009 10:16 PM

This was an excellent article. I feel honored to be part of the team I was recently assigned to. It is
exactly the team Sgt. Valdemar is talking about. We have 7 deputies, 1 corporal and 1 sergeant.
During the last two weeks we started and prematurely ended an extensive gang conspiracy. In only
two weeks of investigation (mostly surveillance) we will put 17 gang members (not all from the
same gang) in prison for years. One thing that was not mentioned was the ability (sometimes) to fund
these investigations as you go. If your team gets into a decent investigation you may have the ability
to seize money to fund future investigations as we did on this one.

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