NYPD CHANGES INFORMANT SYSTEM

The Police Department is changing the way it handles confidential
informants, restructuring the entire system to better protect them
from retribution and to cut down on the use of those proven to be
unreliable, Newsday has learned.

The overhaul comes on the heels of several embarrassing incidents for
police, most recently an order by a federal judge to disclose any
internal documents that explain how it protects confidential informants.

According to an internal document obtained by Newsday, the new
Confidential Informant Review Committee will be run under the
authority of the Intelligence Division, with information "maintained
under strict and secure conditions."

The committee is charged with cutting down on the use of temporary
informants, except in an emergency -- a move designed to allow
supervisors to conduct more thorough investigations before conducting
raids -- and using "facial recognition software" to prevent duplicate
registration of unreliable informants.

Sgt. Kevin Hayes, a Police Department spokesman, said the department
had no comment on the issue.

The department's use of CIs, as police call them, came under renewed
scrutiny in May 2003 when Alberta Spruill, a 57-year-old grandmother
and city worker, died of a heart attack when police stormed her Harlem
apartment and detonated a flash grenade after getting a bad tip about
drug deals there.

The informant had at least a dozen arrests and became a collaborater
after he was arrested on drug and trespassing charges five months
earlier, the NYPD later said.

The city settled with Spruill's family for $1.6 million, and Police
Commissioner Ray Kelly promised to take steps to change the way police
screen informants.

This February, the city agreed to pay $100,000 to a Bronx family that
had sued police, accusing the department of terrorizing them during a
1993 narcotics raid in which no drugs were found. A detective later
acknowledged in a deposition that he could not remember the name of
the informant whose tip led to the raid.

Also in February, Anthony Velez, 20, was shot dead in Brownsville 30
minutes after cops, acting on his tip, found crack and a gun in an
apartment. Velez was reportedly in the apartment at the time but was
not arrested.

Internal Affairs investigators are trying to determine if Velez was
killed in retribution for being an informant and if police had exposed
him as their tipster.

At the time of his death, Velez was not a registered informant, a
violation that could lead to disciplinary action under the new guidelines.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, a federal judge in March told the NYPD
it must disclose any documents explaining its policy regarding
protecting informants.

The order was made in connection with a lawsuit by a man who, in a
$50-million suit against the city, claims the department failed to
protect him after he agreed to become a snitch following a 2001 drug
bust in Bayside.

That man, Robert Matican, now 40, has said that after the dealer made
bail, he slashed Matican in the face with a box cutter and accused him
on giving him up to police.