Word: perez
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...what have you got for us? It's the question D.A.s always throw back at criminals looking to save their own hides. O.K., then, what bigger fish are you going to help us fry? In this case the perp, Rafael Perez, was a Los Angeles cop accused of stealing 6 lbs. of cocaine from downtown headquarters to sell on the street. If Perez wanted to plea bargain that, he'd better offer something pretty good...
...Perez admitted that he and his partner had shot an unarmed, handcuffed 19-year-old and planted a rifle on him to cover it up. And then in 2,000 pages of riveting testimony, Perez yanked back a curtain on a dark, dime-store-novel world in which cops routinely frame the innocent by planting ("throwing down") drugs and guns, smack around ("thump") citizens on the street for kicks and perjure themselves ("join the liar's club") to get convictions...
...Perez's allegations, headlined in the Los Angeles Times and Daily News for days, are a stunning indictment: cops who shot suspects and then delayed calling an ambulance, so they could fix the scene to make the shooting look justified; cops who stole drugs and sold them on the street; cops partying with--and sometimes raping--informants; and cops who shot at suspects for sport. One of the Rampart's least distinguished alumni: former officer David Mack, convicted of robbing a bank...
...heart of the scandal is the Rampart division's Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, or CRASH. Perez is reportedly claiming that 70 to 80 members of this antigang unit were "in the loop," that is, acting a lot like gang members. Among their rituals: decorating their bodies with tattoos of grinning skulls and awarding themselves gruesome plaques for shooting perps...
...perhaps nothing Perez has owned up to is as disturbing as the degree to which fabricating incriminating evidence seems to have been part of Rampart's routine. The L.A.P.D. has sent 50 investigators to every prison in the state--and as far as South America--to track down those framed. But so far L.A.P.D. Chief Bernard Parks has asked for charges to be filed against only three officers, insisting Perez's claim of 70 officers involved is too high. (Eleven officers are on leave.) A police board of inquiry is expected to urge reforms, including improved background checks and polygraphs...