Rampart scandal

thumb|The New Rampart Police Station

The Rampart scandal was a police corruption scandal that unfolded in Los Angeles, California during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The scandal concerned widespread criminal activity within the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) anti-gang unit of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division. More than 70 police officers were initially implicated in various forms of misconduct, including police brutality, planting of false evidence, stealing and drug dealing, bank robbery, perjury and cover-ups thereof.

Of the 70 officers implicated, enough evidence was uncovered to bring 58 before an internal administrative board and 24 were found to have committed wrongdoing with twelve given suspensions of various lengths, seven forced into resignation or retirement and five terminated. As a result of the falsified evidence and perjury by Rampart CRASH officers, 106 criminal convictions were overturned.

The scandal resulted in more than 140 civil lawsuits against the City of Los Angeles, costing the city an estimated $125 million in settlements. Partly as a result of the scandal, Mayor James Hahn did not rehire Police Chief Bernard C. Parks in 2002. Both the scandal and the de facto firing of Parks are believed to have precipitated Hahn's defeat by Antonio Villaraigosa in the 2005 mayoral election.

Timeline of scandal

March 18, 1997 – Officer Kevin Gaines road rage shootout

Around 4 p.m. on March 18, 1997, LAPD undercover officer Frank Lyga shot and killed a plainclothes Rampart CRASH officer, Kevin Gaines, in self-defense, following a case of road rage.

According to Lyga and other witnesses, Gaines pulled his green Mitsubishi Montero up to Lyga's Buick and flashed gang signs.

February 26, 1998 – Rampart Station beating

On February 26, 1998, Rampart CRASH officer Brian Hewitt brought Ismael Jimenez, a member of the 18th Street Gang, into the Rampart police station for questioning. According to CRASH officer Rafael Pérez's recorded testimony, Hewitt "got off" on beating suspects. In the course of questioning, he beat the handcuffed Jimenez in the chest and stomach until he vomited blood.

After his release, Jimenez went to the emergency room and told doctors he had been beaten by Hewitt and his partner Daniel Lujan while in custody. Following an investigation, Hewitt was fired from the LAPD. Jimenez was awarded $231,000 in a civil settlement with the city of Los Angeles. Jimenez served time in federal prison for the distribution of drugs and conspiracy to commit murder and has since been released.

As he was arrested, Pérez reportedly asked, "Is this about the bank robbery?" He would later deny that he had any knowledge of Mack's bank robbery and never testified against Mack. Investigators would later discover eleven additional instances of suspicious cocaine transfers. Pérez eventually admitted to ordering cocaine evidence out of property and replacing it with Bisquick.

CRASH culture

In extensive testimony to investigators, Pérez provided a detailed portrait of the culture of the elite CRASH unit. Pérez insisted that 90% of CRASH officers were "in the loop", knowingly framing civilians and suspected gang members, and perjuring themselves on the witness stand. Pérez claims his superiors were aware of and encouraged CRASH officers to engage in misconduct; the goal of the unit was to arrest gang members by any means necessary.

Pérez claimed CRASH officers were awarded plaques for shooting civilians and suspects, with extra honors if such persons were killed. Pérez alleges that CRASH officers carried spare guns in their "war bags" to plant on civilians and suspects, in order to avoid responsibility for their alleged crime. In recorded testimony, Pérez revealed the CRASH motto: "We intimidate those who intimidate others." Supervisors handed out plaques to shooters, containing red or black playing cards. A red card indicated a wounding and a black card indicated a killing, which was considered more prestigious. Pérez testified that at least one Rampart lieutenant attended these celebrations.

Rampart officers wore tattoos of the CRASH logo, a skull with a cowboy hat encircled with poker cards depicting the "dead man's hand", aces and eights.

Ties to the murder of The Notorious B.I.G.

On April 16, 2007, the estate of Christopher George Latore Wallace, a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G., filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles, which also named as defendants Rampart officers Durden, Mack, and Pérez. The lawsuit alleges that Durden, Mack, and Pérez conspired to murder Christopher Wallace, and Pérez and Mack were present on the night of the murder outside the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Boulevard, on March 9, 1997. On April 5, 2010, the Wallace family withdrew their lawsuit and the claims against the City and the Rampart officers. Perry R. Sanders Jr., a lawyer for the estate, insisted the case was being withdrawn only to avoid interfering with what he called a "reinvigorated" police investigation, and he emphasized that since the suit was dismissed without prejudice, it could be refiled.

LAPD investigators Brian Tyndall and Russell Poole also believed Mack and other Rampart police were involved in a conspiracy to kill Wallace. Poole claimed that Chief Parks refused to investigate their claims of Mack's involvement, suppressed their 40-page report, and instructed investigators not to pursue their inquiries. Poole, an 18-year veteran of the force, quit the LAPD in protest, and later filed a lawsuit against the LAPD for violating his First Amendment rights by preventing him from making his information public.

Record settlement

The city of Los Angeles faced more than 140 civil suits resulting from the Rampart scandal and paid total estimated settlement costs around $125 million. Parks was in charge of Internal Affairs when Gaines and other Rampart officers were first discovered to have ties to the Bloods and Death Row Records. Parks is said to have protected these officers from investigation.

Many city officials, including Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, expressed a lack of confidence with Parks' handling of the investigation.

The "L.A.P.D. Board of Inquiry into the Rampart Area Corruption Incident" report was released in March 2000. It made 108 recommendations for changes in LAPD policies and procedures. The Board of Inquiry report, sanctioned by Parks, was widely criticized for not addressing structural problems within the LAPD. In 2002, the television series The Shield premiered, depicting a band of rogue Los Angeles police officers. The program was so directly inspired by the Rampart Scandal that "Rampart" was nearly used as the series title. The title was presumably changed in order to avoid potential production issues and conflicts with the LAPD. The plot of the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, set in 1992 in the fictional city of Los Santos (based on Los Angeles), is also loosely based on the scandal.

The Rampart scandal was reviewed in the 2018 film City of Lies, based upon the 2002 book LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal by Randall Sullivan. Starring Johnny Depp as Detective Russell Poole and featuring Neil Brown Jr., Shamier Anderson and Amin Joseph as CRASH officers Rafael Pérez, David Mack and Kevin Gaines respectively, the film depicts Poole's investigation of the CRASH unit's criminal activities, their ties to Death Row Records, and his theory of their involvement in the murder of rapper Notorious B.I.G.

City of Lies was scheduled to be released in September 2018, but in July the release was canceled and the film was shelved. The stated reason was due to the negative publicity of Depp's ongoing legal issues, including a lawsuit brought against him that month by the film's location manager. However, director Brad Furman stated he believes Depp is a scapegoat and the studio was pressured by outside forces into cancelling the film. The premiere of City of Lies took place on December 8, 2018, when it was screened out of competition at the Noir Film Festival in Italy.

References

External links

PBS.org Frontline has extensive coverage of the scandal, including audio files of Pérez's testimony
Full testimony of Rafael Pérez