TV Reporter Aids Surrender of Another Fugitive

For the second time this month, a fugitive wanted for questioning in the murder of two Compton police officers turned himself in to authorities with the assistance of television newsman Warren Wilson.

Jeffrey Paul Edwards, 33, who police say is a member of a Bloods set called the Fruittown-Pirus, met up with Wilson a block from the Compton police station about 5 p.m., the newsman said.

“The suspect’s mother called the station looking for me early in the afternoon,” Wilson said. “We arranged to pick him up on-camera, but without showing where he or any of his relatives live.”

Compton Police Sgt. Reggie Wright said police do not believe that Edwards was involved in the shooting of the two officers, Kevin Michael Burrell and James Wayne MacDonald, who were gunned down on a Compton street Feb. 22. But he is wanted for questioning because his gang is suspected of involvement in their deaths, Wright said.

According to Wilson, Edwards wanted to surrender for reasons unrelated to the murder of the two officers. He said Edwards is alleged to have killed a high-ranking member of the Crips, and the gang has put a $10,000 bounty on his head.

Edwards fled to Texas to escape the Crips, Wilson said, but returned after Compton police put out the word nationwide that he was wanted in the case of the officers’ murder. That, Wilson said, would have made Edwards vulnerable to bounty hunters as well.

“I asked him if he felt he’d be safer in custody,” Wilson said. “He said: ‘I hope so.’ ”

Wilson said he conducted a short interview with Edwards on the street, and then drove him to a sheriff’s substation in Carson.

During the interview, Wilson said, two cars filled with men whom Edwards’ mother and sister later identified as Crips cruised the street. The cars pulled up slowly, their occupants scrutinizing the small group around the newsman, before driving off again.

“Until today, I have not been afraid of picking these people up,” said Wilson, who has helped six fugitives turn themselves in safely. “They could have opened fire.”