"When I tried to rob him, he didn't want to give up what I wanted him to give up."
Chained at the ankles, waist and wrists, and wearing a blue, jail-issue jumpsuit, Daniel Sigler recounted for District Court Judge Valerie Vega last Tuesday the events leading to 20-year-old Carl Jefferson's murder.
"He did not turn his back. He did not try to run. And just to let the family know, he was looking at me in the eye when I shot him in his face five times."
Jefferson's April 22 murder at the Shelter Island Apartments kicked off a three-day crime spree that ended when police apprehended Sigler aboard a bus with his kidnapped 2-year-old son. In between, he wracked up a career criminal's resume of offenses: carjacking, kidnapping and attempted murder—13 felony charges in all.
In stories, both daily papers noted Sigler's lack of contrition. Review-Journal: "Killer Adds Insult to Injury." Las Vegas Sun: "Killer Coldly Addresses Parents of Victim." Unexamined, however, was what might've been his most revealing testimony:
"Supposedly, he had a lot of money. That's the only reason he died. I'm sorry it had to happen, but that's what I do for a living. … I rob drug dealers."
True or not, Sigler's boast hinted at a rarely profiled underworld species—the drug robber. Which begs inquiry into their existence. Are there lots of them? Does law enforcement know about them? Are they well-meaning vigilantes or greedy thugs? (Note: Jefferson's family members denied assertions that he dealt drugs).
There's no need to cast drug robbers as urban Robin Hoods nor elevate their criminal opportunism to vocational status, Metro Narcotics Unit Capt. Stavros Anthony says. Pilfering from drug peddlers is all about timing.
"I think it happens because guys know about each other and just find the right opportunity to rob each other," says Anthony. "I haven't heard much of that [in this jurisdiction]. I'm sure it happens, but I don't think that someone has this as their profession." North Las Vegas police failed to return calls for comment.
Profession, no, but in some areas, robbing drug dealers seems to be reaching trade status. In Robbing Drug Dealers—Violence Beyond the Law, Bruce A. Jacobs profiles 29 St. Louis drug dealers who made a habit of robbing peers. "Jacobs takes us into a world that is little seen by civilians—a world in which victims are not protected by due process but are held to the norms of their criminal environments," one reviewer notes. (Jacobs, who wrote the book while when he was an associate criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and now teaches at the University of Texas at Dallas, didn't return a call for comment).
"By sequencing the process of drug robbery into the four conceptual areas—motivation, target selection, enactment and managing retaliation," the review notes, "Jacobs reveals the intricacies of each step during which there is constant assessment of benefits (large sums of money) and risks (injury or death) by the drug robber. Despite the sometimes meticulous planning of these robberies, drug robbers are often caught in situations where they must make quick decisions, which ultimately might jeopardize the robbery and result in violence."
More than likely, people like Sigler aren't drug-dealer-robbing careerists. They're driven by the prospect of increased profits—the more drugs you have, the more you can sell. "We're not dealing with the most scrupulous of people," says Jose Martinez, flak for the Los Angeles office of the Drug Enforcement Agency, which covers Las Vegas. "They do this type of thing when they think they can get away with it, and get away safely, rather than for a living."
Martinez says the code of streets—what happens here is settled here—hampers efforts to quantify the problem. Victimized drug dealers aren't likely to file police reports. "It's a victimless crime," he says. "They're trying to rip off and, sometimes, they end up getting killed."
"Killing the dealer means that the only witness is murdered," Martinez continues. "They're not paying for the drugs, but they can turn around and sell them and there's no cost except the labor it took to take them."