Pubdate: Wed, 10 May 2000 Source: Orange County Register (CA) Copyright: 2000 The Orange County Register Contact: P.O. Box 11626, Santa Ana, CA 92711 Fax: (714) 565-3657 Website: http://www.ocregister.com/ LAPD PROBES If we thought it might lead to serious efforts to root out all the dirty cops in the department and change the culture of the Los Angeles Police Department, we might be inclined to offer a cheer or two at the news. But a deftly publicized threat from acting chief Bill Lann Lee of the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department to slap a lawsuit on Los Angeles if the LAPD doesn't clean up its act looks more like grandstanding and face saving than a serious reform effort. Joseph McNamara, former police chief of San Jose and now a fellow at the Hoover Institution, takes a cop's-eye view of the corruption uncovered so far. "The way to get at gangster cops is to do some sting operations and send them to the joint for a long time," he told us from Washington, D.C., where he is speaking at a conference this week. "We won't get that from Bill Lann Lee or Janet Reno, any more than we've gotten it from the current leadership of the department, who acted only when the Perez case fell into their laps.' Former Rampart Division officer Rafael Perez started accusing others and admitting to some of his own misdeeds late last summer after his girlfriend turned him in when she was arrested. The ensuing charges of brutality and corruption have led to the dismissal and suspension of about 30 officers and the overturning of more than 80 convictions. Mr. McNamara, a recognized authority on policing, believes these cases only scratch the surface, and he's afraid the impulse in Los Angeles is still to contain the damage rather than to uncover the full extent of corruption. The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating the LAPD since 1996, under a law passed in 1994 in the wake of the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots that allows federal officials to seek changes in local police operations. But Justice Department sleuths missed the Perez case and the entire Rampart Division scandal. It's not difficult to suspect that the threat to file a lawsuit to force reforms is a case of playing catch-up. The problem at the LAPD won't be solved by putting in a new monitoring system, the remedy the Justice Dept. is likely to enforce. Phony criminal cases based on planted evidence and perjured testimony wouldn't slide their way through the justice system to easy convictions without serious deficiencies throughout the system. Defense attorneys, prosecutors with integrity and judges more concerned with justice than with speed should have smelled something fishy somewhere along the way - and started asking questions. The fact that they didn't suggests that the problem doesn't begin and end with the Rampart Division. That means it will take more than a Justice Department lawsuit or beefing up the powers of Police Commission Inspector General Jeffrey Eglash - though not a bad idea - to clean up the mess in Los Angeles. Whether the political will can be mustered to keep digging without fear or favor through the entire justice system is the question. It is difficult to be wildly optimistic, but that's what citizens are due.