10/03/00 12:30 p.m.
Exploring the Murky Depths of the LAPD
A credible report, from Lou Cannon.

By Jack Dunphy*, an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department

n Sunday's New York Times Magazine, writer Lou Cannon explores the murky, mysterious depths of the LAPD Rampart scandal. Cannon, like an early undersea explorer in a bathyscaph, finds the life forms flashing through the searchlight beam and bumping up against the glass to be startlingly unlike any that exist near the clear, untroubled water near the surface.

I tend to read the typical media account of the LAPD's troubles with bemused skepticism, as those that appear in the local press — primarily the Los Angeles Times — are generally rife with inaccuracies or full of spin from one unnamed source or another. But Mr. Cannon has credibility in the Dunphy household, as he was one of the few writers to jump off the media bandwagon long enough to actually examine the intricacies of the Rodney King affair.

In his book, Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD, Cannon had the audacity to suggest that the involved cops got a raw deal, that in a show-trial unlike any since the days of Stalin they were sacrificed on the raging pyre of political correctness and racial pandering. The L. A. Times, by contrast, even to this day refers to Rodney King not as "intoxicated, fleeing ex-con Rodney King," but as "motorist Rodney G. King," as though the man were just out for an evening drive when he was stopped, dragged from his car, and beaten senseless by racist cops. And the Times's consistent use of his middle initial seems to be an attempt to suggest a degree of respectability in a man who otherwise, as time has demonstrated, has none.

In the New York Times Magazine article, "One Bad Cop," Cannon focuses on Rafael Perez, the jailed ex-cop at the center of the Rampart Scandal. Perez was arrested after an internal-affairs investigation revealed he had stolen eight pounds of cocaine from an evidence-storage facility, which he apparently then sold on the street. After his first trial deadlocked 8-4 for conviction, investigators uncovered additional evidence that would have sealed his fate in a retrial. Faced with a lengthy prison sentence, Perez did what criminals often do when backed into a corner: He rolled over on his friends.

Perez painted a picture of the Rampart Division's anti-gang CRASH (Combined Resources Against Street Hoodlums) detail as being so far out of control that they were essentially a police force unto themselves, enforcing a code of justice that bears only occasional similarities to that which the rest of us observe. Perez admitted to shaking down drug dealers, stealing their money, selling their drugs, and fabricating cases against those who threatened to complain. He has implicated about 70 of his former coworkers in various forms of misconduct, and over 100 convictions have been overturned in the wake of his admissions.

The most shocking of his revelations was that he and his former partner, Nino Durden, shot and paralyzed gang member Francisco Ovando, then planted a gun on him before investigators arrived. Ovando was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison after Perez calmly testified that Ovando had attempted to ambush the officers in a vacant apartment being used as an observation post.

To be sure, Ovando deserves whatever compensation he eventually wrests from the city, but on his heels are hundreds of others seeking to capitalize from his misfortune. The courthouse daily sees a run of lawyers queued up to file suit on behalf of gang members who have suddenly discovered a path to riches even more appealing and free of risk than robbery and drug dealing. Anyone who has ever been arrested in Rampart Division, or by anyone who has ever worked there, is seeking a reversal of his conviction and compensation from the city. The city will eventually settle most of these cases, regardless of their merit. And the more quickly the better for city attorney James Hahn, a candidate for mayor in 2001.

Even before the current imbroglio, Hahn's office had a reputation as a soft touch in claims against the police department, handing out settlement checks for thousands of dollars like so much confetti to plaintiffs making all manner of spurious claims against police officers. In the city attorney's office, these checks are called "going-away money." And with the mayoral primary coming in April of next year, Hahn will likely be especially profligate with the taxpayers' money, as he seeks to rid himself of the Rampart stench as quickly as possible. Soon we'll be seeing lawyers setting up shops like lemonade stands on the gang-infested streets of Rampart Division, just west of downtown Los Angeles. "Back pain? Hassled by the cops? Free money! Sign up here! Se habla Espaņol!"

Neither I nor any cop I know has a shred of sympathy for Rafael Perez, and we hope his time in custody is long and colorful, filled with the sort of interpersonal contacts one often hears of occurring in prison. But don't be misled. Perez is a thug who should never have been hired, and his credibility as it pertains to the accusations against his former coworkers is eroding like a sandcastle at high tide. There may indeed be a handful of others like him in a department of over 9,000 officers, but the rest of us neither condone nor turn a blind eye to their actions. If your choice is between believing the gang-banger or the cop, the smart money still goes with the cop.

No amount of oversight, by the federal government or anyone else, can prevent a Rafael Perez from abusing his office if he manages to slip through the hiring process. The challenge is in preventing him from being hired in the first place. The LAPD, like police departments in Miami, New Orleans, and elsewhere in recent years, tried to hire too many cops too quickly, while trying to satisfy racial quotas imposed through consent decrees. And like those other departments, in the Rampart scandal we have reaped the bitter harvest of those efforts.

Gordon Graham, a captain with the California Highway Patrol, as well as an attorney and lecturer on police risk-management issues, put it succinctly: "You can't train an immoral person to behave morally."

Indeed. Nor should you give him a gun and a badge.

(*Jack Dunphy is the author's nom de cyber. The opinions expressed are his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management .)