Anger, Confusion Mount in Hunt for Molester : Crime: School district police and LAPD take opposite courses of action in West Valley search for suspect.

After authorities concluded that a serial molester was stalking and assaulting San Fernando Valley schoolchildren, city police and school police took opposite--and independent--courses of action.

Police for the Los Angeles Unified School District opted for a high profile approach, beefing up patrols around the site of the Nov. 3 rape near Fullbright Avenue Elementary School, hoping to scare away any would-be molester and protect the children.

But the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division set up an undercover stakeout in the same area, hoping to catch a criminal.

Both police agencies acted without conferring, officials agree. And as soon as the school police learned about the stakeout operation, they backed off, LAUSD Police Chief Wesley Mitchell said Friday.

The contradictory approaches are emblematic of the debate over how the investigation has been handled. Some parents and school officials have expressed alarm that they weren’t notified immediately that a serial molester had assaulted children near Valley schools since February.

Deputy Chief John Moran, acting commander of the Valley’s five police divisions, insisted Friday that it would have been impossible to warn parents earlier because investigators themselves didn’t connect the initial 22 incidents to a single suspect until the child was raped Nov. 3.

Moran has conceded that human error and poor communications between the Valley police divisions may have hampered police in identifying the pattern of sexual attacks earlier.

On Friday, it became clear that the poor communications extended to school police.

“There are a lot of things that are mysteries to me,” Mitchell said. “I do know that we weren’t brought into the picture until Fullbright. This is a recent, hit-the-fan thing for me.”

Mitchell said he placed a call Friday morning to Capt. Vance Proctor, who commands the Devonshire Division. The call was not returned, he said.

“I’m real uncomfortable right now with what’s happening and the lack of communication with the Los Angeles Police Department,” Mitchell said. “At issue right now is public confidence.”

When he didn’t hear from Proctor, Mitchell said he called Moran late Friday afternoon. He added that the discussion with the commander satisfied him.

By late afternoon Friday, Moran and Mitchell were acknowledging that school officers had spoken with Devonshire detectives in August about several incidents near schools there. The discussions were informal and the incidents appeared to be random. Nonetheless, principals of at least two schools were alerted.

And, Mitchell said, the incidents were not discussed at a large meeting held between the LAPD and school police at the Police Academy before school started.

Stung by the criticism earlier in the week, LAPD officials said at a news conference Thursday that the school police had received half the initial 22 reports. Mitchell said his officers took seven reports.

In an interview, Moran termed “a darn good question” why the incidents occurring in three divisions since February never came up during monthly meetings of Valley sex crimes. Most of the serial molester’s crimes involved physical contact, which police said is fairly unusual, compared with flashing or indecent-exposure incidents.

“It’s certainly something everybody’s thinking about now,” Moran said.

Another device by which divisions share information--police radio broadcasts--also was ineffective in the case of the molester. A groping--while considered a felony if it involves a child--is not the kind of crime typically broadcast, police said.

Earlier in the day, a molester task force of about 15 sex-crime detectives from around the Valley began in earnest, systematically reviewing a list of registered sex offenders, looking for similarities to the molester, Detective Craig Rhudy said.

“In a situation like this, you try everything you can,” Rhudy said.

“Every person who fits the composites we have is going to be questioned” and eliminated one by one, he said.

Evidence gathered to date consists mainly of eyewitness and victim accounts, plus the sole physical evidence from the Nov. 3 rape of a 9-year-old girl in the West Valley Division, Rhudy said. Investigators had considered, but now say it is unlikely that the recent rape of a young-looking woman in her 20s in North Hollywood is related.