Pubdate: Tue, 25 Apr 2000
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Los Angeles Times
Contact: Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053
Fax: (213) 237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Forum: http://www.latimes.com/home/discuss/
Author: Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times
Bookmark: MAP's link to items about the scandal:
http://www.mapinc.org/rampart.htm
GENESIS OF A SCANDAL
March 2, 1998: Six pounds of cocaine is checked out from property room at
LAPD headquarters, ostensibly for use as evidence in a drug trial.
* * *
March 27: Police officials, concerned that the cocaine has not been
returned, launch an internal investigation.
* * *
Aug. 25: LAPD Officer Rafael A. Perez is arrested on suspicion of stealing
the cocaine.
* * *
Dec. 23: Perez's trial ends in a hung jury.
* * *
Sept. 8, 1999: As a jury is being selected for his second trial, Perez
pleads guilty to stealing eight pounds of cocaine from LAPD facilities. He
enters into a confidential plea agreement in which he is expected to
receive a reduced sentence on the drug charges in exchange for identifying
other police officers involved in crimes and misconduct.
* * *
Sept. 13: Ex-LAPD Officer David A. Mack, a former partner and friend of
Perez, is sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for a Nov. 6, 1997, bank
robbery in which he and two accomplices escaped with about $722,000, most
of which remains unaccounted for. Perez and Mack partied together in Las
Vegas, spending thousands of dollars, two days after the bank heist.
* * *
Sept. 15: Chief Bernard C. Parks announces that Perez has implicated
himself and another officer in the shooting of an unarmed man, Javier
Francisco Ovando. Parks says that 12 officers have been either assigned to
home or fired in connection with the ongoing investigation.
* * *
Sept. 16: Ovando, the man shot by Perez and his partner and later framed
for assaulting the two officers, is freed from prison after serving three
years of a 23-year sentence.
The FBI, meanwhile, launches a civil rights investigation.
* * *
Sept. 20: Prosecutors announce they are immediately suspending enforcement
of two sweeping anti-gang injunctions affecting more than 100 members of
the notorious 18th Street gang.
* * *
Oct. 13: Ovando files a lawsuit against the city.
* * *
Nov. 10: A judge overturns criminal convictions against four men and
dismisses a case against another.
All of the actions are taken at the prosecution's request after Perez says
the defendants were framed.
* * *
Nov. 17: A court commissioner, acting on a defense attorney's motion,
orders the release from state prison of Ruben Rojas. Perez admitted framing
Rojas on a drug charge.
* * *
Nov. 30: Judges overturn criminal convictions against four more men, each
of whom was allegedly framed.
* * *
Dec. 29: Detectives reopen an investigation into the May 19, 1998, shooting
death of Carlos Perez Vertiz, 44, a man with no criminal record who was
shot 10 times and killed in the basement laundry room of the apartment
building where he lived, after he allegedly pulled a shotgun on Officers
Frank Galindo and Ruben Palomares.
* * *
Jan. 13, 2000: Four LAPD officers are relieved of duty with pay, bringing
the total to 20 who have been relieved of duty, suspended without pay or
fired, or who have resigned.
* * *
Jan. 14: LAPD officials ask Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti to file criminal
charges against Officers Nino Durden, Brian Hewitt and Michael Buchanan,
suspected of crimes ranging from assault under color of authority to perjury.
* * *
Jan. 25: Judge overturns the convictions of 10 others who were allegedly
framed, bringing the total to 23.
* * *
Jan. 27: In an interview with The Times, a second Rampart officer
corroborates Perez's allegation that officers, acting with at least one
supervisor's knowledge, planted evidence to frame people.
* * *
Jan. 31: Prosecutors move for the first time to overturn convictions not
directly involving Perez, but involving nine other officers.
Four of them have not been relieved of duty or disciplined for alleged
misconduct.
* * *
Feb. 1: Judge reverses the convictions of seven adults and two juveniles
allegedly framed by officers.
* * *
Feb. 5: Chief Parks tells the Police Commission that lax oversight and poor
adherence to departmental policies helped "corruption to flourish" and that
he needs at least $9 million and hundreds of new positions to fix the problem.
* * *
Feb. 10: The Times reports that, in transcripts of Perez's interviews with
investigators, Perez tells of an incident in which a 21-year-old man shot
by police lay bleeding to death in the hallway of a Mid-City apartment
building. He said officers intentionally delayed calling an ambulance while
they planted a gun near where the man had fallen.
Transcripts also reveal that Perez told investigators an organized criminal
subculture thrived within the department. He said a secret fraternity of
more than 30 anti-gang officers and supervisors awarded plaques to officers
for wounding or killing people.
* * *
Feb. 12-14: The Times reports that Perez told investigators that he and
fellow ex-Officer Durden used a drug-addicted homeless woman as one of
their regular informants, giving her crack cocaine as payment.
Using that information, they would shake down drug dealers, stealing their
money and drugs for the officers' own profit, he said. It is reported that
Perez told investigators that he helped cover up three unjustified
shootings and knows of at least five others in which officers and their
supervisors doctored shooting scenes.
In one, a rookie officer allegedly overreacted and shot an unarmed man
hiding in a closet.
A supervisor allegedly splattered ketchup around the scene and concocted a
tale that the young officer thought it was blood and believed he was in
danger of being shot.
* * *
Feb. 17: Mayor Richard Riordan seeks to divert $300 million in expected
tobacco settlement money to pay the cost of resolving Rampart-related lawsuits.
Police disciplinary unit calls for Capt. Richard Meraz to be punished for
failing to take appropriate action after being told of an alleged beating
at the Rampart station.
* * *
Feb. 23: FBI launches probe into scandal, while the district attorney's
office pursues murder and attempted murder charges against some officers.
The Times reports that officers, working from what they alleged was a list
of 10,000 purported gang members, systematically circumvented city policy
by colluding with a little-known unit of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service to deport at least 160 Latino immigrants and deny others citizenship.
* * *
Feb. 25: Perez is sentenced to five years in prison for stealing eight
pounds of cocaine.
* * *
March 2: The Times reports that INS agents working with LAPD detectives
explicitly suggested deporting alleged 18th Street gang members who
couldn't be prosecuted.
* * *
March 22: The Times reports that the LAPD supervisor who was told by a
prosecutor of alleged perjury by Perez was among the detectives who
conspired to cover up crimes and misconduct.
* * *
March 30: Police corruption probe spreads to other divisions, including the
Central, 77th Street and Southeast.
The Times reports that as the Rampart scandal widened last fall, an INS
agent warned that many arrested Latinos had been falsely accused of gang
membership, according to an INS memo.
* * *
April 5: Federal grand jury indicts Officer Edward Patrick Ruiz and former
Officer Jon Paul Taylor, from the 77th Street Division, alleging they
framed Victor Tyson, who had no previous criminal record, five years ago by
falsely claiming he had a concealed weapon.
City Council approves first two settlements of what is expected to be a
flood of lawsuits by alleged police victims.
* * *
April 13: Thirty LAPD officers are summoned to testify behind closed doors
before the grand jury.
* * *
April 17: Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn says that at least 71
criminal convictions may be overturned because of credibility problems with
officers implicated in Rampart. The misdemeanor cases are in addition to
the 99 felony convictions that authorities previously identified as tainted.
* * *
April 20: Judge overturns seven more tainted convictions, increasing the
number of cases thrown out in scandal to 67.
* * *
April 24: The district attorney's office files criminal charges against
three officers for their roles in the arrest of an 18th Street gang member
who allegedly was framed on a weapons charge in April 1996.
* * *
TURNING POINTS:
March 2, 1998
Six pounds of cocaine missing from Rampart property room.
August 1998
Rampart Officer Rafael Perez arrested in missing cocaine case.
Sept. 15, 1999
Perez implicates himself and another officer in shooting of unarmed man.
Corruption scandal then quickly widens.
April 24, 2000
Criminal charges filed against three officers for their roles in the arrest
of a gang member who allegedly was framed.
* * *
Profiles of a Precinct
GEOGRAPHY
Rampart L.A. City
Population per sq. mi.
30,560 7,610
Area in square miles
6.208 471.285
* * *
DEMOGRAPHICS
Rampart L.A. City
'98 population 189,716 3,586,289 '90
population 191,606 3,486,320
Pop. age 18+
130,087 2,640,752
Med. age of total pop.
29.00 33.5
* * *
INCOME
Rampart L.A. City Median
$21,110 $43,201
% under $15,000
37 22
* * *
HOUSING UNITS
Rampart L.A. City Number
60,843 1,304,454 % 10+
units in structure 61 33
* * *
EDUCATION
Rampart L.A. City
% completed 0-8 yrs. 40 19
Some high school, no diploma 17 15
% high school graduate 15 19
% some college 15 25
% college degree 13 23
* * *
Note: Figures may not total 100 percent because of rounding.
* * *
ETHNICITY
Rampart L.A. City
% Latino 79 48
% White 3 30
% Black 4 12
% Asian 15 10
% Am. Indian Less than 1 Less than 1
* * *
Sources - Times files, Claritas
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake