People who pass information to the police know there is often a serious risk to their safety and that of the family. This story from New Jersey highlights just how easy it is to put a person’s life in danger. To summarize it is alleged a Police Chief left a message on an answering machine implying that a woman was assisting or was wanted to assist in providing the police with information about a criminal gang. The phone number he used was the wrong number and instead of getting through to the intended recipient it went to an associate of the gang, thus exposing the woman to the gang. Without knowing all the details of the case it is difficult to establish the level of error made by the Police Chief. However, what can be said is that even someone with the most basic training in managing confidential informants (covert human intelligence sources, CHIS, human sources, HUMINT.) knows that this is just something you do not do. It is fraught with risks.
To know the level of culpability one has to look at the training programs in place within the agency and the procedures they have for managing confidential informants. If any untrained officer is allowed to manage informants it is going towards the negligence end of the continuum. It is not just one officer making a mistake. In this case one would also have to ask why a Chief of Police engaged in such activities? What training did he have and who was supervising him with regard to the activity. Managing confidential informants is a high risk activity. Contact with informants should only be carried out by properly trained officers operating under intrusive supervision. It is the only way that all the risks can be effectively managed.
No doubt there will be many who will say: It was only a phone call.’ No one was hurt.’ ‘It was just a genuine mistake.’ ‘Police officers are allowed to ask people to help them.’ And a thousand other excuses intended to rationalize, justify, and distort what has actually occurred.
The reality is that a woman’s life has been placed in jeopardy directly because the police did something wrong. . Was it careless or negligence - well I guess the court will decide now.
I strongly suspect that for the police department the only discussion will be how much they will have to pay out. Hopefully other departments will learn from the mistakes made here. Venturing into the world of confidential informants requires adequate structures and proper training tor officers.
We have detailed what is required in our book: Human Sources: Managing Confidential Informants. It is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
Don’t make the mistakes others have made.
