KTLA News: "Use of informants in law enforcement agencies" (1972)

[No audio] [Unidentified Informant] I was beginning to be aware that, [Informant] that our people were being, ah, being railroaded and another thing I was being sold out. [Informant] See, I had, ah, good intentions of working for the government. I had good intentions of, ah, [Informant] of working, ah, for the government, which I, [Informant] I believed in it at one time. I truly believed in it. [Informant] But when I began to see how corrupt the government system was creating against our people, [Informant] to destroy us. [Informant] I didn't think that it was, it was right. [KTLA Reporter, Stan Chambers] Do you think that the police or law enforcement agency should use informers at all? [Informant] No sir, I think that's, ah, ah, a violation of constitutional rights. [Chambers] Do you think all of the intelligence operation of that type should be eliminated? [Informant] Yes sir, I think I do. [No audio] [Informant] drugs. Against poor blacks, poor Chicanos and poor white areas for the simple reason, [Informant] that they don't want the people to unite, [Informant] together as a working force. So, in order to, to, ah, [Informant] to keep them down all the time, the government perpetrates drugs, [Informant] to the community to, so we cannot, ah, be effective. That's why, that's why, perpetrated drugs. It's not our people. [Informant] It is, it, it, it is a, the people that, that, that, ah, [Tapping finger on table] that are hired by the government. [Informant] They say this about, about, ah, ah, the government being against the drugs. Well, how come they hired a drug addict like Nacho? [Informant] He was a drug addict. They were paying his expenses. [Informant] And yet, then, then they were using him against us. That's [?] [Informant] You take it from there. Who's, who's supporting, who's supporting the drugs. [Reporter] Are they actually pushing drugs? [Camera noise] [Chambers] these facts are out. What are your next steps? What do you hope to accomplish? [Unidentified speaker w/mustache] In regards to what? [Chambers] To the basic purpose of the news conference. [Mustache] Well, what we hope to accomplish, is to call attention, [Mustache] to the type of activities of the police. In entrapment, the entrapment of activists. [Mustache] Also to try to, ah, as I said before, [Mustache] force the government to begin a congressional investigation of this type of activities. [Mustache] And to point out to the people, ah, what the case of Los Tres de Barrios is all about. [Mustache] We called press conferences during the case and we were ignored. [Mustache] Ah, I don't know if it's too late. You know, the case would be appealed obviously. [Mustache] But, ah, the men will be in prison for a while. [Reporter] If an appeal [?] [Camera noise] [Unidentified speaker] to let them, [Camera noise] [Unidentified female speaker] stand. A government conspiracy in the case of Los Tres. [Female] To the citizens research, [Camera noise] to the extent of this, [Mustache] workings of the vast complex of intelligence units, within the Los Angeles Police Department. [Mustache] The Federal Bureau of Investigation. Has said the U. S. Treasury Department, [Mustache] Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. [Mustache] And also, into the CIA, [Mustache] Because we believe that there is a best, [Mustache] amount of cooperation and there is the best amount, [Mustache] of sharing of their files and that those, usually the cooperation, sharing of those files, [Mustache] results in the entrapment of individuals working for the betterment of the community. [Voice off screen] Also added to that list and I think at this point given the recent events since nineteen, [Camera noise] [Mustache] are innocent. They were entrapped into defending their lives. [Mustache] And when they saw a federal agent go for his gun, whom they thought was a pusher, [Mustache] Perhaps if I explain a little bit, into the type of operation that [Camera noise] [Chambers] For about how long did you operate as an, an informant? About how long? [Informant] I'd say between, ah, [Informant] middle of, middle of, ah, of '69 to September sixteenth. [Chambers] When did you stop approximately? [Informant] Ah, well on September sixteenth. [Chambers] Of last year? [Informant] This last year. [Chambers] Now, why did you come forward today to make, to disclose all this information? [Informant] For this simple reason that, that ah, simple reason. [Informant] Because don't you see that by using informers, [Informant] that device, divides our people. See, they have used a method of divide and conquer. [Informant] They have, that's how they have succeeded in dividing our people today. [Reporter] Ah, how many, [Camera noise] [Informant] point nine percent. [Reporter unintelligible] [Mustache] Ah, no. [Informant] No. [Mustache] The violence, [Camera noise] [Informant] Ah, [?] Station ah, one of the, ah, [Informant] the news man, I don't know what he said. [Informant] Ah, I told him, let's throw him down the river, [Laughs] you know, [Informant] because he was insulting, ah, a lady. [Informant] And ah, he had torn down a Mexican flag that we had put up. So he said he was with some, I don't know who, [Informant] but we threw, we were trying to throw him in the river, but I didn't. [Chambers] What effect has undercover operations had,