dirty cops
Witnesses on Arno Street, one block north of the crime scene,
reported hearing gun shots and looking out their window to see a beige
VW bug with more than one person in it come tearing up the street and
pull into the lot next door to their house. Then, the driver turned off
his headlights and, after a few moments, drove slowly back down Arno in
the direction from which he had come.
That lot next door was the location of an auto body shop, which was
an alleged chop shop for stolen vehicles. According to a private
investigator who had the shop under surveillance for an unrelated
reason, many of the people who supplied those cars were
Vietnamese. It was also a hangout for rogue cops who partied there after
hours. One of those cops has been identified as APD Officer Matt
Griffin, the “Ninja Bandit,” who was arrested one week before Kait’s
death and found guilty of multiple bank robberies and the murder of a
witness. His accomplices were never identified. A mole in the Police
Department has told a private investigator that two members of Dung’s
Vietnamese group were stealing get-away cars for Griffin.
Other APD officers who partied at that shop have since been convicted
of other felonies. One of those cops was the supervisor of Internal
Affairs. That particular cop was a field officer involved in the
investigation of Kait’s shooting.
That same automotive body shop was later raided, for an unrelated
reason, by the F.B.I.; Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; APD; and the
Department of Public Safety. Guns were confiscated, and the owners' son
was arrested for drug dealing. The owner has stated that he knew Kait.
Why is the information about the VW bug important? Because the
people in that car were fleeing the crime scene and probably trying to
take refuge in the fenced area behind the chop shop. (The gate was
locked that night, and they couldn’t get in.) Paul Apodaca, the first
person at Kait’s scene, was driving a VW Bug. Dung’s alibi friend, An
Quoc Le, owned a VW Bug. And neighbors at Kait’s apartment complex
reported Dung and his friends spray painting a beige VW bug black in the
parking lot of the complex the day after Kait died. (They reported it
to the apartment manager, because the black paint was spattering their
cars.) The investigating officer's field notes identity a witness who
saw Kait followed from her apartment that night by a VW Bug. (That
information was withheld from the case file.)
A witness, who drove past the scene immediately
after the shooting, saw an unidentified uniformed officer in a marked
car, standing at the open driver’s door of Kait’s car, at a time before
Det. Merriman, the first officer at the scene, ever got there.
Merriman, who was off duty and out of uniform, has stated that he did
not go to the driver’s side of Kait’s car.
Kait’s family wants to know the identity of this “mystery cop,” what he was doing at the scene, and why he didn’t report the shooting?
other cop disagrees
Crime Scene Photos Examined by Out-of-State Agency
“Judging from the picture of the bullet hole in Kait's car, I would have to say that she was run off the road and the killer exited the vehicle and fired the shots into the car while standing behind her. This is based on the height of the bullet hole and the apparent angle of strike. I am also convinced that the killer was a police officer. This is based again on the angle of strike and placement of the bullet hole. For the bullet to strike at this angle position the killer would have been standing behind Kait just in the exact place a police officer would be trained to stand when effecting a traffic stop and holding a gun as only a police officer would have been trained to do so. The killer was a police officer, the Arquettes can take that FACT to the bank. I'll bet my life on it.”
Driver Side Window Of Kait's Car