Police Arrest Fugitive Gang Member Turned Author

“Monster� Kody Scott, a former gang member who became a best-selling author, was captured by police while he was signing autographs on the porch of a South-Central Los Angeles house, almost three months after he fled parole agents who wanted to test him for drug use.

When Los Angeles Police Department officers spotted Scott on Monday night, he ran through the house, but was caught before he could escape, said Sgt. Andrew Smith. The officers from the 77th Street division station had little difficulty recognizing Scott, Smith said.

Scott’s book jacket--with his photograph prominently displayed--was posted on the police station wall.

About 10 people, including half a dozen children, were lined up on the porch for autographs when Scott was nabbed, Smith said.

“One woman was left standing there on the porch, still holding her pen and piece of paper,� Smith said.

The menacing photograph on the cover of Scott’s book shows him scowling, tattooed, naked to the waist, pumped up from prison weightlifting and brandishing a semiautomatic weapon. But officers Monday night were confronted with a different image: an unintimidating 5-foot, 8-inch man.

When Scott was apprehended at the rear of the house, he was extremely cooperative and even bantered with the Special Problems Unit officers who arrested him.

“He was very nice and pleasant,� Smith said. “He told us he didn’t mind getting sent back to prison because he would have the time to write. He said the writing was therapeutic.�

Scott had written “Monster: the Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member� while serving a four-year robbery sentence at Pelican Bay state prison. He obtained a six-figure advance, and the book sold more than 100,000 copies and received a number of glowing reviews. Some people, however, criticized the book, saying he rationalized his years of killing and maiming other African Americans.

Scott was paroled in September and left prison with a contract to serve as a consultant on the screenplay of his book.

One Los Angeles County probation officer who knows Scott said he ran from parole agents probably because he had been using drugs and was afraid of “testing dirty.�

“Kody is bright, he’s successful, but he’s weak,� the officer said. “The [cocaine] pipe always brings him down.�

Scott’s problems began Feb. 29 in Moreno Valley where he lives, when police pulled him over and discovered about a gram of marijuana in the car he was driving.

On March 7, several parole agents burst through the front door of his home. They intended to test him for drug use and search his home for narcotics, said Lynda Ward, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections. When Scott spotted the officers, he slipped out a door and ran away.

“When I talked to him last, he seemed to be very involved in working on the screenplay to his book,� said Leon Bing, a friend of Scott and author of “Do Or Die,� a book on Los Angeles street gangs. “He was excited to be writing. . . . But for anyone to come back from Pelican Bay to the real world . . . it’s an unimaginable shock and change.�

Scott evaded parole agents for almost three months, but on Monday night, officers of the 77th Street division’s Special Problems Unit received a tip that he was in a neighborhood near 71st Street and Western Avenue. He now faces up to a year in state prison.

“We’d heard from some of our sources on the street that he was carrying two guns and told everyone he’d never be taken alive,� Smith said. “But when we picked him up, he was unarmed.�