[HPN] LAPD scandal grows

[William Tinker]

2-12-2000
 I just have to say SOS we have the same problems every where just more or
less involved...
Every one knows a cop or attorney that is "dirty"we only do something when
it directly involves us! Why?
"A Brother In Strife And In Peace"
                     Bill

 LOS ANGELES -- So many lies, false arrests, dirty cops and wrongful
 convictions are being exposed in the latest scandal engulfing this city's
 police force that it is getting hard to keep up with all of the corruption.

 The tally of abuse and deceit increases almost every week.

 The police chief now says that rogue officers in a neighborhood overrun
with
 gangs framed at least 99 people during the past three years by planting
 drugs or guns on them, and also may have reveled in shooting a few unarmed
 suspects.

 The district attorney is investigating whether hundreds of criminal cases,
 all linked to the growing list of police officers under suspicion, may be
 tainted or fake.

 At last count, 32 criminal convictions have been overturned.

 And so far 20 officers have been fired, suspended, or have quit.

 It is one of the most corrosive police corruption cases ever in Los
Angeles,
 it rivals similarly sordid tales that have plagued other big-city police
 forces lately, and by all accounts the probe of it has only just scratched
 the surface.

 "An evil cancer has been found inside the LAPD," said Steven Yagman, an
 attorney representing several dozen people allegedly assaulted or framed by
 officers. "I've never seen anything like this all at once. We've got boxes
 filled with these stories. This is a bad, bad thing, and the city knows
it."

 The scandal, which came to light last fall, has grown so large that last
 week Police Chief Bernard C. Parks told city council members that settling
 lawsuits could cost $125 million. That sum is twice what Los Angeles
budgets
 each year for liability.

 Reeling from that disclosure, some city officials have begun discussing
 whether to put a bond measure on the ballot and ask voters whose faith in
 the police department has been shaken badly--again--to help pay the huge
 cost of cleaning up the force. Nine more criminal cases linked to a new set
 of officers being investigated were thrown out last week, and a fifth
 innocent person who had been sent to prison on phony drug dealing charges
 was set free.

 Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti is promising another wave
 of overturned convictions soon. "The investigation has clearly expanded,"
 said Victoria Pipkin, a spokeswoman for his office. "We're still in the
 early stages, but we believe that when the smoke from this settles, it will
 entail many more than 99" people framed.

 In many ways the scandal is the same old damning story for the LAPD, which
 has often been its own worst enemy in the last decade, from the beating of
 Rodney King caught on videotape to its disastrous handling of the city's
 riots and detective Mark
 Fuhrman's perjury in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

 One former officer, Rafael A. Perez, is the focus of the latest probe. He
 has told investigators that he and a partner shot an unarmed 19-year-old
 man, planted a gun on him, then testified that he threatened them with an
 assault weapon during a stakeout on gang turf.

 The man, Javier Francisco Ovando, was sentenced to 23 years in prison. He
 was freed one week after the scandal broke. He may be confined to a
 wheelchair for life because of the shooting.

 In another incident just disclosed, Perez said that he and other officers
 shot an unarmed 21-year-old gang member they had been chasing through an
 apartment building, then delayed calling an ambulance while they planted a
 gun on the scene to make the shooting look justified. The man, Juan
Saldana,
 later died.

 And this is just the beginning of the sensational stories Perez has had to
 tell. He is helping investigators in exchange for leniency on charges of
 stealing cocaine from a police evidence locker.

 According to Perez's account, much of which police say they are
 corroborating, planting drugs, lying under oath in court, using brute force
 and conducting illegal searches have been common in one of the department's
elite anti-gang units known as CRASH. It stands for Community Resources
against Street Hoodlums, one of the city's primary weapons in the long
 battle against gang violence.

 Police say Perez has told them that in their zeal to bust suspected gang
 members, he and other officers sometimes carried stashes of drugs when they
 patrolled, to make a frame-up quick and easy.

 In investigative transcripts obtained by the Los Angeles Times this week,
he
 also says CRASH members sometimes gave each other a plaque after shooting a
 suspected gang member, such as Ovando. In one instance, he said officers
 betrayed a confidential informant in front of fellow gang members, knowing
 he could get beaten, or worse.

 Until last week, all of the overturned convictions had direct links to
 Perez. But in a sign of how the probe is widening, Perez was not the
 arresting officer in any of the nine latest criminal cases just thrown out
 by a judge because they involved phony drug charges.

 Dozens of officers and their supervisors in the department's Rampart
 Division near downtown, where Perez was assigned, are under suspicion for
 the same misconduct, or for looking the other way.

 And police have not said that they are certain the corruption is confined
to
 Rampart.

 In the ranks, the scandal has been devastating. Sgt. Armando Perez, who has
 been assigned to the Rampart Division for six years, said officers feel
 betrayed by their colleagues, frustrated by the pace of the investigation
 and worried that they could be made scapegoats by a department under
 pressure to clean house.

 On the streets and in court, Perez said, officers also sense their
 credibility is in shambles, or gone.
 "All the hard work we do is in question now," said Perez, who is one of
 about 400 officers at Rampart.

 "At trials, the first thing that defense attorneys are asking officers when
 they take the stand is, 'Are you assigned to Rampart?' "

 The scandal is also dividing the community around the Rampart Division.
Home
 to many newly arrived Mexican and Central American immigrants, some
 illegally, it is a bustling part of Los Angeles that is all grit, no glitz.
 At least 20 gangs roam its narrow alleys and tightly packed, low-rise
 apartment buildings, warring over turf and drug sales. Rampart is one of
the
 police department's biggest and busiest precincts.

 Residents are not defending officers admitting to misconduct, but some
still
 say they support the harsh attitude that the force flaunts on the streets.
 Its crackdown on gangs, they say, is saving the neighborhood.

 "Three years ago, it was really bad here, but it's gotten a little better,"
 said Santiago Ramirez, 31, a maintenance supervisor. "The police have
helped
 me out a few times. I have nothing to say against them."

 But a few protests have been staged at Rampart, and some community leaders
 say the investigation into the renegade style of officers is long overdue.
 Fearing reprisals, many others are angry but reluctant to criticize police.
 They say they now fear some officers as much or more than gangs.

 "If you have dark hair, a moustache and a car, the police will harass you,"
 said a Hispanic man in his twenties as he worked in a local shop.

 "People are afraid," said a middle-aged man who has lived in the area for
 five years. "They've seen and heard what can happen if you don't stay on
the
 good side of the police."

 Carol Watson, a leader of a local nonprofit group called Police Watch,
which
 monitors the department and has been working with the community around
 Rampart, said that since so many residents are newcomers from other
> countries, they have almost accepted police abuse as a fact of life.
>
 "There's disillusionment, but mostly people are just numb to it," she said.
 "From what we're hearing, these things with police happened all the time."

 Parks has assigned nearly 50 officers to the Rampart probe. Some have gone
 as far as Mexico and Guatemala to interview possible victims of police
misconduct. The chief is urging Garcetti to prosecute three officers, and
 recently he announced that cases involving 52 defendants are so "severely
 tainted" they should be dismissed at once.

 To date, a core question has gone unanswered: What went wrong? Some
 officials who have studied the LAPD say that it has instilled a
 by-any-means-necessary mentality in officers fighting gangs. Other city
 leaders wonder whether a rush to beef up the force--the department added
 about 2,000 officers in the past six years--has hurt training.

 Similar moves in other cities, including the District, have led to serious
 policing problems. But the scandal here is not focused on patrol officers.

 "We're talking about highly specialized units this time," said Merrick
Bobb,
 an analyst of policing practices who has investigated the LAPD. "You would
 think that the department would be able to carefully select officers for
 that kind of assignment."

 What the department needs most, some say, is stronger civilian oversight.
 But other community leaders contend that little will change until more
 officers break codes of silence, report misconduct and face no
 recriminations.

 In the meantime, the corruption probe wears on. Garcetti said recently that
 it could take months, even years, to resolve. The department is being
 besieged by lawsuits.

 At Yagman's firm, business is so brisk that lawyers are being hired just to
 work on potential cases against the LAPD. On the firm's Web site, he also
 recently posted a new list from Garcetti of people whose convictions
 involved officers now under investigation. It has several thousand names.