Car Thief Got Jail’s Green Light

Salvador Alvarado was behind the wheel of a stolen white 1994 Honda Civic in Eagle Rock in the early morning hours of June 13 when he caught the eye of passing police officers on the lookout for car thieves.

Their clue that the car was hot? They looked through a car window and could see there was no key in the ignition.

Alvarado, 30, led them on a short chase, running red lights and driving dangerously. Then he jumped from the car and started to run. But within a few paces, he lay down and waited for the officers to arrest him.

It was his fifth arrest in a year on suspicion of stealing cars or possessing burglary tools.

Los Angeles Police Department officials have pointed to his case as an illustration of the toll taken by career criminals.

But it also highlights the strained Los Angeles County justice system, in which overcrowded courts and a lack of jail space have been a recipe for plea bargains and truncated time behind bars -- giving career criminals such as Alvarado more time on the streets to find new victims.

On the day police caught him in Eagle Rock, Alvarado should have been in jail on a previous conviction. In November, he had been sentenced to a year in county jail for stealing another Honda -- a felony conviction. At the time, he was driving without a license because of a previous drunk driving conviction.

Even with credit for good behavior, he was due to be behind bars until today.

Instead, after serving just 38 days, he was released early -- one of more than 150,000 county jail inmates in recent years who have served only fractions of their sentences, in part because of budget cutbacks and a shortage of sheriff’s deputies.

Alvarado’s early release in January came despite another recent conviction for car theft. He’d been sentenced to four months in jail in June 2005 but served only five days before being released to a work program. By July 1, he had quit reporting to the program and suffered no immediate repercussions.

For Alvarado, the revolving door kept spinning quickly.

Like others who commit nonviolent offenses, Alvarado was at low risk to serve significant time behind bars. The pace of his releases and rearrests was accelerated by his willingness to appear in downtown’s Division 50, an express court that allows defendants who admit their guilt to proceed directly to sentencing.

The use of such courts is meant to ease the county’s overwhelming caseload and spare the expense of preliminary hearings.

But when a sentence to county jail is imposed, a defendant often ends up back on the street within days or weeks of an arrest, officials acknowledge.

“He’s beating the system in terms of punishment,� Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said after listening to Alvarado’s list of offenses and convictions. “But in all fairness, Mr. Alvarado’s types of crime pale next to the murderers and gang members and many people in the county jail right now who have been to state prison in the past.�

Baca said that although he takes car theft seriously, his priority remains holding the most dangerous offenders, given federal limits on crowding in his jails.

“The reality is that if you have only a 20,000-bed capacity and yet you have a 30,000-prisoner volume, the system breaks down when it comes to county sentences,� Baca said. “It collapses.�

Regardless of the reasons, the result is criminals who “think it’s a joke,� said LAPD Lt. Steve Flores, who supervises officers who have repeatedly arrested Alvarado and other frequent offenders. “There’s no consequences, and they know it,� he said.

Alvarado declined to be interviewed when asked last week by jail officials if he would speak to a reporter.

After he got out of jail in January, he was rearrested March 6 on suspicion of possessing burglary tools. The next day, he pleaded guilty. He got 30 days in jail and probation but was released within hours because the sheriff does not hold county prisoners sentenced to less than three months -- a policy meant to make room for more serious offenders.

Alvarado was picked up again May 11, again on suspicion of possessing burglary tools; he got out on bail three days later.

“These are the kinds of people who nickel and dime us to death,� LAPD Cmdr. Charlie Beck said. “We spend so much time trying to deal with them, and one guy who commits 30 or 40 [property crimes] in a short time just kills an area in terms of crime statistics. And if someone stole my car or your car, as far as we’re concerned that’s public enemy No. 1.�

Beck said thieves disproportionately affect people who own older vehicles, which are easier to steal and are in demand for parts.

“When you steal the family’s only car and they may or may not have insurance, it’s much more serious,� he said.

Nine days after his most recent arrest, Alvarado pleaded guilty to taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent. This time he got a two-year prison sentence -- his first commitment to a state penitentiary.

Janet Moore, director of central operations for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, said her office was “extremely pleased� by Alvarado’s sentence to state prison.

“We have a guy with no serious or violent priors. He could have easily gotten low term and he got midterm, and we did it at the early stage so the taxpayers and LAPD were saved the cost of [preliminary hearings] with a disposition that’s pretty doggone good,� she said, noting that the charges filed against Alvarado call for a 16-month, two-year or three-year prison term under state sentencing recommendations.

Moore said the previous sentences would have been appropriate had Alvarado actually done the time the court ordered.

“This time he’ll be off the street, and it won’t be for a few days like it would be if we sent him to county jail,� she said.

But Officer Hector Olivera, who arrested Alvarado last month, shook his head when told of the outcome.

“I’ll see him again. I have no doubt. He’ll be right back here stealing cars,� said Olivera, who has worked out of the Northeast Division for eight years.

“There’s guys I’ve arrested four, five times, and they’re right back out again. You’re doing all this work and what for? When we arrested Alvarado, he recognized the officers in one of the backup units because they arrested him for the same thing last year.�

Alvarado is serving out the rest of the county jail time he owed on previous convictions and is scheduled to be sent to state prison in mid-September. Because his convictions are not considered serious or violent, he will be eligible for parole after serving half of his prison sentence, according to court officials.

In many respects, Alvarado’s case is ordinary. He is one of the tens of thousands of defendants who come through Los Angeles County’s criminal justice system each year.

A Times investigation earlier this year found nearly 16,000 cases of people being arrested on suspicion of new crimes when jail records indicated they would have been in jail on previous convictions if not for early releases. Those arrests date from mid-2002 when Sheriff Baca shut down jail facilities after his department took a major budget hit.

Alvarado was in the news earlier this month when he was cited along with three other men arrested by LAPD officers working out of the Northeast Division as being responsible for more than 500 property crimes in Eagle Rock and Highland Park. The others are awaiting trial.

The cases were highlighted by police as examples of the toll taken by serial offenders. Though the rest of the city saw a 10% drop in property crime last year, the Northeast Division fell far short with a 4% reduction. Detectives investigating the disparity found that car thefts were high in certain neighborhoods.

For one victim of car theft in the area where Alvarado is known to have stolen vehicles, the facts of the case were disturbing but not shocking.

“Because they weren’t violent offenses, I’m cynically not surprised,� said Stephen Falk, a writer who has lived in Eagle Rock for two years. “In Los Angeles [car theft] seems like an impossible thing to stop.�

Ten days before Alvarado’s arrest in November, Falk’s 1988 Honda Civic was stolen from outside his home.

Falk’s car turned up months later on a street in Highland Park, its tape deck and AM/FM radio missing, the back seat ripped out.

Falk, who said police never traced the car back to a thief, had no replacement insurance and already had bought an older car to get around.

For about a month after the theft, Falk said, “I was really freaked out and a little suspicious and changed my route down the hill.

“The car had a lot of sentimental value to me. It was my family’s car. I learned to drive in it. I lost my virginity in that car. When it finally died, I was going to send it out in style.�