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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
A former LAPD detective says Chief Bernard Parks had evidence of the scandal a year before it was revealed, but kept it from the district attorney -- and the public.
Sep 27, 2000 | The meeting that could have prevented the Los Angeles Police Department's blockbuster Rampart scandal took place in Chief Bernard Parks' office at the department's Parker Center headquarters in the second week of September 1998. Officer Rafael Perez, whose tales of police brutality, unjustified shootings and false arrests would later trigger the worst scandal in LAPD history, had been arrested two weeks earlier on charges of stealing cocaine confiscated as evidence. But so far, none of Perez's chilling story had become public.
On that September day two years ago, Detective Russell Poole, the Robbery-Homicide Division veteran who had sniffed out Perez and personally arrested him, met with LAPD brass to brief them on another investigation. This one involved a disturbing station-house beating that happened to take place at Perez's station, Rampart Division.
Had Chief Parks listened to Poole that day, the LAPD might have cleaned up the troubles at Rampart before they became a national scandal. Instead, Poole charges, the chief made him suppress the evidence of corruption he had uncovered -- a pattern of protecting bad cops that the respected veteran detective says was common practice under Parks, despite his pledge to clean up the department. A full year would pass before the scandal finally erupted in the headlines, when Perez cut a deal for leniency and the media rushed to tell the tale of the Rampart Division's so-called rogue cops.
At the Parker Center meeting, Poole explained the details of the beating case to the chief and other assembled brass. Officers Brian Hewitt and Daniel Lujan Jr. of the Rampart station had picked up a local man named Ismael Jimenez, who was reputed to be a gang member, and brought him to Rampart headquarters without apparent cause. There Hewitt punched the handcuffed, helpless Jimenez until he vomited blood. Lujan and another officer, Ethan Cohan, knew what happened but apparently helped cover up the beating.
Jimenez's complaint about the beating triggered an LAPD investigation, which was referred to Detective Poole. Poole's Robbery-Homicide Division handled all major crimes in L.A., as well as police shootings and other complaints of violence by LAPD officers.
But Poole's investigation revealed something far bigger than the details of the Jimenez beating. He uncovered an alarming pattern of misbehavior on the part of Rampart cops assigned to the anti-gang CRASH unit (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums), who routinely detained, intimidated and sometimes assaulted gang members and gang associates without cause. Poole found that at least four lawsuits were pending against Rampart officers. One beating victim, Gabriel Aguirre, said his arm was broken by Officers Cohan and Perez.
Poole learned from interviews with gang members that Rampart cops frequently rousted them without filing log entries or gang intelligence index cards, a red flag to a seasoned investigator like Poole, indicating officers were probably engaged in activities they'd rather not record. Those who complained were targeted for retaliation, Poole learned: Jimenez himself had been picked up without probable cause as retaliation for the filing of a prior complaint against the police. After the beating, several Rampart cops showed up at the hospital where Jimenez was treated to intimidate him.
There were other disturbing signs of corruption: Gang members told Poole they were constantly being pressured by Rampart cops to provide them with clean -- untraceable -- guns. In fact, Jimenez claimed Officer Hewitt beat him because he wouldn't find him a gun. Poole wasn't sure what to make of those claims until he served a search warrant at Officer Perez's home, where he found a cardboard box marked "CRASH, Secret, Confidential." Inside were half a dozen replica toy and pellet guns, all of which looked very real. They turned out to be "laydown" guns -- guns the CRASH officers used to plant on suspects, to justify violence against them.
And there were increasingly obvious connections between a growing number of bad cops: Perez's friend and former partner, David Mack, had been arrested less than a year earlier for the armed robbery of a bank. Mack, who later admitted to being a member of Los Angeles' notorious Bloods street gang, was in turn connected with Kevin Gaines, another cop with troubling gang ties whom Poole had investigated. Mack was also suspected of having been involved in the unsolved 1997 murder of gangsta rapper Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls, which Poole also investigated.
At the Parker Center meeting, which included Poole's supervisor, Lt. Emmanuel Hernandez, a commander and two deputy chiefs, Poole presented Chief Parks and his top brass with a timeline of events demonstrating a pattern of brutality and misconduct at Rampart. He didn't mince any words: "Chief, it's more than just this case. It goes a lot deeper than that. You've got a group of vigilante cops at Rampart Division."
Everybody in the room fell silent, Poole vividly recalls. Also present were his partner, Detective Beatriz Cid, and another member of the special task force that was formed to investigate the Perez case, Detective Brian Tyndall. Poole pressed on, telling Parks that to present a solid case to the district attorney's office in the Jimenez beating, he needed to reinvestigate some other complaints that had been filed against Rampart officers, including one that charged Perez with assault with a deadly weapon. Some of these complaints, which involved some of the same officers, had languished or not been properly investigated.
But according to Poole, Parks cut him off. "No!" the chief barked. "Limit your investigation to the Jimenez case. Don't add any of that."
Shocked and disturbed, Poole went to work on his report.
