Escaping the Kill Zone: My Journey from LAPD's Zebra Unit to Undercover Federal Operative in the Las Vegas Mafia

“Man’s Life Resembles Spy Movie” — Headline in San Pedro News Pilot on Monday, December 7, 1981

Mike Powell’s blood and guts stories go far beyond his days working as a plainclothes officer in one of LAPD’s Zebra Units—a unit tasked with tracking down violent criminals in South Central L. A. “Shootin’ Newton” was notorious for its many police shootings including the Black Panther and Symbionese Liberation Army shootouts. Two of Mike’s four shootings occurred in Newton.

Mike and his partners tracked down murder suspects, bank robbers, and a serial a killer of young boys. Mike’s police stories take us back to the days when cops were allowed to be cops, and when police chiefs like LAPD’s Ed Davis and Daryl Gates sent former military, “warrior cops” into the streets to hunt down violent criminals.

Mike also served as a key undercover operative for both the LAPD, undercover as a woman, and the federal government, undercover in the MAFIA, and he lived to write about it. If you’ve seen the movie Casino, then you have seen the mobsters he brushed shoulders with.

Mike ended his investigative and undercover career after he received several death threats, and his home was set ablaze while he and his first wife, Manette were in it.