O.C. TEEN INFORMER CASE HAS PARALLELS

Chad MacDonald's story is one of several in which families say informants
died or were at risk.

Gregory"Sky" Erickson was 15, an aspiring professional golfer from
Estherville, Iowa. Last May, he sat in a conference room with police and
prosecutors who wanted to make a deal.

Arrested during a traffic stop for allegedly possessing a small amount of
methamphetamine, Erickson could avoid prosecution by digging up information
on area drug dealers, recalled his father, Gregory Erickson.

A week later the teen-ager was found beaten and shot to death. His body had
been set on fire and dumped across the Minnesota state line.

"I feel responsible because I talked him into this," the elder Erickson
said. "There's just a lot of people that miss the hell out of him."

While police say the boy was killed over a drug debt, his father contends
he was slain because he had been an informant.

His story resembles one now playing out in Orange County involving the
death of a Yorba Linda teen-ager who was killed, his mother says, because
he had ben a drug informant for Brea police.

Neither case is unique. From the Atlantic Coast to Silicon Valley, there
have been other situations involving juvenile informants, some that have
had deadly results:

A Roanoke, Va., teen-ager was slain by a man from whom the boy had bought
drugs as a police operative.

A San Jose youth was plucked from a county juvenile-detention hall to work
undercover for police on a bust that resulted in the death of one man and
the wounding of an officer.

While legal, the use of minors as police informants has drawn sharp
criticism from juvenile-justice advocates and experts on police conduct.

"I think it is improper, and I don't think they should be doing it," said
James J. Fyfe, a Temple University criminologist who has testified as an
expert witness in police-misconduct cases.

"The primary responsibility of the police is to protect lives," he said. "A
drug arrest is not worth putting a kid's life at risk."

Many police agencies don't condone the practice and say they don't employ
minors as snitches. But others argue that using juveniles is sometimes the
only way to infiltrate drug operations.

The controversial practice was thrust into the public spotlight after Chad
Allen MacDonald, 17, of Yorba Linda was tortured and strangled at a Norwalk
drug house earlier this month.

Hes mother alleges that in the weeks before his death he'd made drug buys
for Brea police to avoid prosecution on a methamphetamine charge.

Chief Bill Lentini says MacDonald was on his own the day he died. He would
neither confirm nor deny the boy's previous involvement with his
department, but said juveniles had made at least five drug buys for Brea
police investigations.

While many police officials say that minors are used sparingly if at all -
and almost always are required to have written permission from their
parents - several cases illustrate why the practice is controversial.

IOWA YOUTH'S ROLE DISPUTED

In the Iowa case, police ultimately arrested 10 people in connection with
Sky Erickson's killing. His father says they are people the 15-year-old
turned in to police.

"Do I think there should be an age limit for who can act as an informant?
Well, it's pretty obvious that a 15-year-old wasn't able to handle what
took place," Gregory Erickson said.

Clay County Attorney Mechael Zenor said there had bee "some discussion"
about the youth's providing authorities with information about drug
dealing, but that he died before he could act on that arrangement.

The suspects later told investigators it was revenge over a drug debt that
prompted the killing, Zenor said.

"The whole motive was that he owed a drug debt to these bad guys and he
didn't pay up." said Zenor, who is prosecuting Erickson's accused killers.
So far, six of the 10 have been convicted.

Had Sky Erickson been prosecuted as a juvenile after his first arrest, he
probably would have spent about sex months in juvenile custody the same
sentence MacDonald would have received.

Zenor doubts it would have prevented Erickson's death.

"Oh, come on," he said. "That would be a hell of a stretch to say if he had
gone to rehab he wouldn't have been killed. He would have still owed the
money when he got out, and the motivation was the money."

POLICE: TEEN VOLUNTEERED

Sixteen years after Cecil Calloway was slain, his family still blames the
police who used the 16-year-old as an informant in Roanoke, Va.

"Even though he was streetwise, by him being that young I know he didn't
understand what could happen to him," said his sister, Jo Ann Calloway, 29.

Her family believes Cecil Calloway met police officers while he was in a
detention home for boys after getting nabbed for stealing and truancy.
After he got out, he began hanging out with a Roanoke vice officer named
Pete Sullivan.

Calloway said she believes her brother thought he was buying drugs for a
cop who wanted them for illegal personal use. Sullivan, now a sergeant,
said the boy knew police were using his information and drug buys to arrest
dealers.

"He walked in and just volunteered," he said. "We didn't have any charges
on him, he wasn't working anything off; he just came in off the street and
wanted to help us. He just said he wanted to get the drugs off the street."

Cecil did a good job, he said, helping on the arrests of three or four
dealers. It was a job for which he was paid a small amount of money and in
which he took some measure of pride.

"We found out later that he was going around telling people he was a junior
narc," Sullivan said.

But it wasn't Cecil's bragging that led to his death, Sullivan said. It was
the fact that one of the dealers Cecil bought from followed him down the
street and saw him get into a car with two vice officers.

Robert Earl Rose, a nightclub owner known as Mr. E, heard that Cecil was
working for the cops. Rose had recently been arrested - not long after
selling drugs to Cecil - and police say he sought revenge.

Rose was convicted of shooting and bludgeoning the boy and dumping his body
on a remote stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway. He died in prison in 1994
while serving a life sentence.

"It's a risk they take," Sullivan said of juvenile informants. "They know
it in the back of their minds. And we take every precaution we can with our
informants. We don't throw them to the wolves with their eyes closed.

I feel bad about it. But I don't fee responsible for it."

The Calloways sued the city, the Police Department and Sullivan for
$500,000, alleging they failed to protect Cecil. The suit was dismissed,
but police now require officers to get parental permission before using
juveniles.

"My brother, he was just flat out used," Jo Ann Calloway said.

INFORMANT KILLS HIMSELF

In 1989, the mother of Robbie Williamson, 17, sued the city of Virginia
Beach, Va., after the teen-ager killed himself with drug overdose.

Dorothy Williamson alleged that police had used her son as an informant
without her permission and had failed to take into account his troubled
past. He was on probation at the time for theft and burglary, and had been
in out of a psychiatric treatment facility.

"If they had talked to his probation officer, taken the time to talk to me,
they would have found out how unstable Robbie was," she said in court
papers.

Police and city officials contended the boy volunteered and knew what he
was doing. If Robbie had been younger and less mature, they said, his
mother's permission would have been sought.

"Robbie was 17 at the time, and he was judged be the people he was working
with to be mature enough to make that decision on his own," said L.Steven
Emmert, a senior city attorney who added that the youth was used only as a
source of information, not as an undercover agent.

His mother's lawsuit contended that his status as an informer became known
to drug dealers through police negligence. Threatening phone calls began
the day after his information led to the arrests of several dealers, she
said.

The family said in court that Robbie killed himself because of those
threats, Emmert said. The judge dismissed the case in 1992, ruling that the
boy's constitutional rights had not been violated.

His mother refiled her suit in state court, seeking $2.5 million. The city
settled it for $48,750 but admitted no liability.

Emmert said the city now uses juvenile informants only in "extremely
limited" situations, and only with parents' written consent. Detectives no
longer may use juveniles without a captain's approval.

LAWMAKERS WANT CHANGE

Change has been proposed by legislators because of the MacDonald killing.

Assemblyman Scott Baugh, R-Huntington Beach, last week proposed emergency
legislation that would prohibit police from using juveniles in similar
cases. State Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, has
called for a hearing before the Senate's Public Safety Committee.

Nationwide, there is no consensus on how or whether minors should be used
as police informants. Often, police department have no policy on the issue
until controversy arises.

That's what happened in Lexington, Ky. in the mid-1980s, after two teen-age
boys were used by police in a male prostitution sting.

A 16-year-old - who said he agreed to work after he was arrested for auto
theft - and his 14-year-old cousin posed as male prostitutes and were
picked up by a Lexington lawyer and driven to his apartment.

The older boy - whose mother had given he consent - wore a microphone so
police could listen to what happened. But before officers arrived the
younger boy - whose family knew nothing of the police operation performed
oral sex on the man for $20.

His mother later filed a lawsuit, seeking $12.5 million from 20 defendants.
It was settled out of court.

The mayor of Lexington called the undercover operation "a mistake" that
"sort of got out of hand" and issued strict guideline: police could use
juveniles only as a last resort and only with the approval of the public
safety commission, commonwealth and county attorneys, and a social worker.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police - with 16,200 members in
104 countries - has no specific policy position on the issue, said
spokeswoman Sara P. Johnson. Its model policy on confidential informants
recommends only that juveniles be used in accordance with department
policies and state laws.

However, a background paper on confidential informants warns law
enforcement agencies to exercise caution with juveniles and says it is
"essential" that two officers be present at meetings with juvenile
informants and that written consent forms be signed by a parent or legal
guardian.

Some juvenile-justice advocates contend that minors should never be used.

"It is irresponsible to put someone at that age at that abount of risk,"
said Dan Macallair, associate director of the Center on Juvenile and
Criminal Justice, a nonprofit group in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

"The worst label, the most dangerous label that could be put on a kid in
some of these neighborhoods is 'a snitch' or 'a narc' or whatever word
they're using," Macallair said. "That alone can put a kid in serious
danger."

In the mid-1980s in San Jose, a 17-year-old Juvenile Hall inmate was
released to police investigating a drug and theft ring.

"They checked him out like a library book," said Scott Ewbank, a San Jose
lawyer and member of the Santa Clara County Juvenile Justice Commission.

The undercover operation went bad, sparking a shootout. The juvenile ducked
in time to dodge a bullet, but one officer was wounded and a suspect
killed.

Paul Lepak, a Santa Clara County deputy probation officer, said the use of
teen-age informants is simply too risky.

"You're basically putting a child in a situation that is dangerous from the
get-go," he said. "I can't imagine any agency wanting to do that. The
liability is just tremendous."

Ewbank said he will ask the commission to make sure that no Santa Clara
County agencies are using juvenile informants.

"I'm hoping that lesson from 13 years ago isn't forgotten," he said.