Word: ovando
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Some of the malfeasance was more lethal. Perez's most incendiary story concerns the 1996 shooting of admitted gang member Javier Francisco Ovando. Ovando was a skinny 19-year-old whom Perez and his partner shot and then, according to Perez, planted a rifle on to make it look as if Ovando had attacked the police. Ovando was paralyzed, and may never walk again. The judge at the trial lambasted Ovando--who had to be wheeled in on a gurney--for endangering the lives of two hero policemen, before sentencing him to 23 years in prison. In September, Ovando...
Javier Francisco Ovando is famous today, but back in 1996 no one much cared when cops stormed his apartment near downtown Los Angeles and shot him in the chest and head. Ovando belonged to the 18th Street Gang, a group of powerful Mexican drug lords. At trial, the judge lectured the skinny 19-year-old--who lay paralyzed on a gurney--for threatening the lives of two brave cops, and sent him away for 23 years...
...classic cops-and-robbers tale, but with a film-noir twist. Ovando was railroaded by the police, who had planted a gun to get the conviction. But no one believed Ovando until a dishonest cop, Rafael Perez, talked. Faced with 14 years in prison for stealing cocaine from a police lockup, Perez opted to bargain for a lighter sentence by delivering up his fellow officers. That was five months ago, and Perez has hardly stopped talking since. He has filled 2,000 transcript pages with accounts of cops faking evidence, testifying against innocent people and generally acting like criminals themselves...
...right, many others could go down. Police chief Bernard Parks has already relieved a dozen cops of duty, with pay. They all worked in the Rampart division, which handles a part of town heavily populated by immigrants. Durden was fired recently on charges (separate from the Ovando case) that he planted evidence and made a false arrest. Other cops are suspected of selling drugs, using excessive force or simply keeping the whole mess at Rampart quiet...
...planted guns on those suspects as well. Federal authorities have joined the investigation, which could stretch to Las Vegas, where some Rampart officers may have partied with a fellow cop after he committed a bank robbery. "Sooner or later, the truth will come out," says Gloria Romero, grandmother of Ovando's daughter...