Hazleton police chief: ‘Aliens’ cause crime (Hazleton Standard-Speaker)

By KENT JACKSON
Staff writer

SCRANTON — Four officers rushed to Pine Street Playground after hearing about a gun incident, which illustrates constraints that police faced as crime turned more serious and pushed Hazleton toward approving an immigration ordinance about which Police Chief Robert Ferdinand testified Tuesday.

In the trial determining the constitutionality of the city’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act, Ferdinand testified that when officers arrived at Pine Street they questioned adults, found a sword, two baseball bats and a golf club under the slide, and closed the playground.

Later that night, May 10, 2006, “a regular guy” working on his car was shot to death, and the search for the killer initially focused on the alleged shooters from the playground, Ferdinand testified.

The testimony provided the most detailed public depiction of what happened at the playground that evening but ranged broadly onto the growth of city gangs, the effect of layoffs and sick leave on a police force that sifts through false names to identify illegal immigrants and uses rental cars so drug dealers won’t recognize officers on stakeouts.

Plaintiffs, who claim the city exaggerated reports of crime and the costs resulting from illegal immigration, challenged Ferdinand throughout his testimony, which began Monday and lasted nearly seven hours.

Reviewing records supplied by the police with Ferdinand, plaintiff’s attorney Thomas Fiddler identified no violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants between 2001 and 2005. Fiddler counted three last year, compared with 428 violent crimes committed during the six-year period.

Given the estimated growth in population since 2000, Fiddler asked, would Ferdinand agree that crimes per 1,000 residents decreased?

Yes, Ferdinand said. Later, he explained that the crime around the city grew darker, and incidents involving illegal immigrants grew from rarities to five in 2005 and 19 last year.

Ferdinand identified at least six gangs in the city, including one known as “DDP” or Dominicans Don’t Play.

“And they don’t,” Ferdinand said.

Fiddler agreed about the seriousness of the gangs, but said they exist in other communities. He suggested that some gang members come to Hazleton but don’t live there, and that not all gang members are illegal immigrants – points with which Ferdinand agreed.

Ferdinand said he sees more gang fights like the one reported at the playground last May, more people carrying guns and other weapons, and more people willing to use weapons while selling heroin and crack cocaine.

“We see burglaries out of desperation – busting in doors when residents are home. It can turn violent,” Ferdinand said.

The playground incident gave an example of the tug-of-war between plaintiffs and defendants.

Fiddler read the reports given to him, dated May 10 and 12, 2006, and noted a juvenile was involved in a fight, according to what police wrote.

Was this the same report that Mayor Louis Barletta has referred to publicly as the shooting in the playground? There is no reference to any shooting, Fiddler said.

Ferdinand said it was the same incident.
Later, when Defense Attorney Andrew Adair asked Ferdinand to explain what happened, Fiddler objected.

“If he wants to make testimony about a shooting at the playground where one document doesn’t say there was a shooting at the playground, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it,” Fiddler said before federal Judge James M. Munley allowed the chief to answer.

Last week, another attorney for the plaintiffs, Vic Walczak, asked Barletta during cross-examination if the weapon involved was a BB-gun. Barletta didn’t know.

Ferdinand, however, said two guns, a .22-caliber and a .380-caliber were involved, and young men riding in a vehicle fired two shots into the air.

One of them, a 14-year-old illegal immigrant, belonged to the Bloods and recruited members to the gang, Ferdinand said.

He “would speak to kids in high school, show them the money he had, the power, so it looked like a good idea to be a part of a gang,” Ferdinand said.

Gang recruiters prey on illegal immigrants, who lack family support to resist their overtures and often figure they only will be deported if caught committing crimes, Ferdinand said.

Police intensified their search for the 14-year-old after learning that Derek Kichline had been shot to death a few hours after the playground incident.

By all accounts, Kichline was a regular guy, and the killing wasn’t random, said Ferdinand, allowing that he didn’t know the motive.

With officers working around the clock and the overtime meter spinning, they located the boy two days later.

He confessed to the shooting at the playground, but wasn’t connected to the murder, Ferdinand testified.

While questioning the boy in the police station, an officer noticed the boy had something in his mouth. It was crack cocaine, Ferdinand said.

Barletta said earlier that juvenile had his attorney’s telephone on speed dial.

The juvenile has been deported, but Ferdinand said the gang will just replace him.

Chasing the incorrect lead that the boy was involved in the murder slowed the attempts by police to solve the killing, Ferdinand said.

But within days they arrested four men, all illegal immigrants, in connection with the killing.

One of those arrested possessed a birth certificate stolen the week before during a home invasion in which the victim was stabbed. One of the defendants used an alias, which delayed police in that case and others, Ferdinand testified.

“That’s one of the problems … You spend a great amount of time looking for a fictitious name,” he said.

Another of the defendants had been arrested previously in New York for several charges, including attempted homicide.

He has ties to the Latin Kings, Ferdinand said.

Fiddler asked if the $17,000 that the city spent on police overtime during the pay period following the murder all went toward that investigation.

Ferdinand said some of it could have been paid to officers working on other matters.

The following week, on May 18, 2006, police raided a barbershop/clothing store on North Wyoming Street with help from agents of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ICE cooperated with the city so well the past two years that Ferdinand said his force hasn’t sent an officer for training as a deputy immigration agent through a program known as 287G.

When the trial began on March 12, Walczak said the city hadn’t participated in 287G when giving the opening argument for the plaintiffs.

On Tuesday, Fiddler read from a brochure touting the program’s successes to Ferdinand.

The chief, however, said the program won’t give Hazleton’s police much benefit beyond what they receive now from ICE, whose help he rated at 11 out of 10.

With seven of the force’s 30 members on extended sick leave during parts of last year, Ferdinand said he couldn’t spare an officer for training in the program.

Medical problems hampered the force, which was rebounding from the layoff of seven officers when Barletta took office six years ago and the city faced a deficit of more than $500,000.

That might change this year, now that Hazleton has hired three officers and expects to put seven more on the payroll to boost the department to 40 officers, Ferdinand said.

Even at that level, Hazleton ranks will be thinner than police forces in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, which have approximately two officers for every 1,000 residents, a guideline set by the United States Department of Justice, he said.

Hazleton police prepared for 11 months before raiding the barbershop. Undercover officers and informants purchased drugs and police conducted surveillance.

As they watched the barber shop, the drug dealers watched them.

To hide their presence, police swapped cars regularly from the city’s meager fleet.

“I spent a lot of money using rental cars,” Ferdinand added.

Two of the five people arrested during the raid were illegal immigrants, and police still seek the leader of the organization who travels internationally.

Fiddler asked if the two illegal immigrants arrested in the barbershop raid weren’t in Hazleton, wouldn’t police have had to spend money to apprehend the other three defendants?

Ferdinand laughed and said “I imagine we would,” and became sarcastic.

As soon as he left the witness stand, Ferdinand said he was going to see Mr. Kichline and tell him the city doesn’t have a problem with illegal immigration.