Paul Barben, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, looked through the bars of the Northglenn Police Department holding cell at the man he had spoken to almost every day for more than a year.He stated the date: Sept. 12, 2012. Then he severed ties.
"Demetrius Trujillo, you are no longer an ATF confidential informant," Barben told Trujillo, who had been arrested on a murder warrant.
"It's like that, huh, Paulie?" Trujillo said as Barben turned to walk away with another ATF agent and a Northglenn detective.
That conversation, later memorialized in court testimony, brought to a close Trujillo's 19 months of work on behalf of the ATF — a time that highlights both the benefits and perils of law enforcement reliance on confidential informants.
While police use informants to catch criminals, those informants also are prone to go off the rails, causing death and crime — just as Trujillo did.
Trujillo's work was instrumental in securing indictments and convictions against fellow gang members, but then he killed Christopher Garduno, a gangster he promised federal officials he would help them catch.