SANTA ANA, CA-Yorba Linda teenager Chad MacDonald, Jr., 17, whose tortured body was found in a south Los Angeles alley, made one undercover drug buy for the Brea Police Department before being dropped as an informant 10 days before his murder, according to documents released Wednesday, (April 1, 1998), that reveal new details about the controversial case. The release of police reports and Orange County district attorney files marked law enforcement's first public acknowledgment that the under-age Yorba Linda youth was exploited as a police informant. The documents give solid evidence of the covert relationship between Brea drug investigators and MacDonald, even providing the dates of days he worked for them. The teenager's family insist that it was this work that marked the boy as a "narc," which resulted in his brutal murder.

Police were quick to play down the work performed by the teenager, who had been arrested for possession of drugs in January; after being coerced and threatened by police, the youth agreed to act as an informant, with the permission of his mother. Police spokesmen stressed that the work MacDonald did was not life-threatening, meaning he only provided information about illegal activity, and made one undercover drug buy that failed to result in any arrests. When MacDonald was later arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana and methamphetamines, police concluded that he was selling and using drugs in violation to his probation agreement (which was the basis of his status as an informant), and he was dropped as an informant.

Brea Police Chief William Lentini has been under fire for exploiting a minor in such a sensitive and risky role as a police informant. Law enforcement officials stonewalled the press and community leaders who were concerned that the police had used its power inappropriately to coerce an accused drug user to expose himself to risk by betraying the confidences of his associates; the fact that the informant was underage enabled the police to hide behind the state laws on confidentiality regarding minors, until the Superior Court ordered the release of papers held by police which document their use of MacDonald. The police actually had the nerve to assert that the teenager had caused his own death.

MacDonald's family members insist that the documents that were released by court order support their allegations that when Chad MacDonald's work as an informant became known to his associates in Norwalk, California, he was walking into a trap when he and his 16-year-old girlfriend went there on March 1^st. Two days later, MacDonald's tortured remains were found in an alley in South-Central Los Angeles. His girlfriend survived the ordeal, after being raped and shot. The attorney for the family, Lloyd Charton, claims that there are police documents that are still unreleased that prove that police officials were well aware that the teenager was killed because of his work as an informant. MacDonald's mother, also, recalls only giving permission for her son to give the police information; she claims that she never gave any permission for her son to engage in any undercover buying of drugs, something that posed an obviously dangerous risk.

(CNS)

SOURCE: Information derived from article in the 2 April, 1998, issue of the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Edition, written by Bonnie Hayes and Scott Martelle, Times Staff Writers. This article is provided in the public service of the national interest of the American people.