Word: gangly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...minority communities toward former chief Daryl Gates' department, culminating in the uproar over the 1991 beating of Rodney King. But the Rampart scandal has taken police misconduct to a new level of lawlessness and given currency to a new term: the gangster cop--not much different from the gang members the police are battling. As investigators work to get to the bottom of it all--and to separate the good cops from the bad--a city is wrestling with a larger question: Who will police the police...
...area back, the L.A.P.D. established a special antigang unit, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, or CRASH. In addition to their weapons and swagger, CRASH officers were armed with a powerful legal tool--sweeping antigang injunctions (since lifted) that gave them free rein to push around suspected gang members. Among the offenses the injunction covered: blocking sidewalks and carrying pagers...
There have long been complaints that Rampart cops were playing dirty. "It's been happening for years," says Alex Sanchez, a former gang member arrested by Rampart and facing deportation. "We've seen cops take drugs and let the youths go. We've seen them plant drugs on others. Youths have been saying, 'That wasn't mine. He planted it on me!' But who would believe them?" The fact was, as long as the complaints were coming from suspected gang members--some of whom had criminal records--no one much seemed to care. "If you peeled the layers back...
That all changed when one of CRASH's own started talking. Perez says he was part of a tight-knit group of CRASH officers who played by twisted rules. This antigang fraternity acted a lot like a gang itself. When a new recruit joined the unit, CRASH members allegedly circled around and beat him--an initiation ritual that criminal gangs call "jumping in." In one case, a white CRASH officer leaving the scene of a police beating of a civilian--for which the city had to pay a $25,000 settlement--allegedly yelled out, "¡Puro Rampart! [Totally Rampart...
Perez has recounted a stunning collection of illegal acts, many as bizarre as they are disturbing. He told of one officer whose car tires were slashed. The cop and his partner tracked down the gang member they believed was responsible and dropped him--naked--in a rival gang's turf. Perez tells of another CRASH officer who shot a suspect repeatedly with a beanbag shotgun--a nonlethal weapon used to knock suspects to the ground...