Poole also prepared photos, charts and computerized diagrams for his Rampart report. "When you go the D.A., you have to paint a picture for them," he says. "That's exactly what I did. And I didn't write half of what I should have in my report because I was ordered not to. The D.A. looked at the two-page report they gave him and he couldn't figure out what happened. They can't sift through dozens of interviews and put everything into context. That two-page report didn't help them at all."

Officers Hewitt, Lujan and Cohan, the Rampart cops accused in the Jimenez beating, were all brought before a board of rights, a departmental disciplinary hearing. After the board acquitted Lujan, the department called Poole to testify at the hearings for Hewitt and Cohan. "It was evident the board captains did not have all the information," Poole recalls. Following Poole's testimony, Hewitt and Cohan were dismissed from the force. Poole was told a deal had been made not to pursue criminal charges. "Losing their jobs is punishment enough," a commander told him.

To this day, Poole seethes at the memory of his suppressed report and the full-scale Rampart investigation it should have inspired: "I demonstrated a pattern of ongoing activity that needed to be investigated in its totality rather than individual incidents. And the chief knew from experience that if Perez was stealing and dealing cocaine, we had to be naive to think no other officers were involved.

"But it started snowballing and the chief didn't want anything to do with a big conspiracy at Rampart Division -- the reason being that all the managers would get burned, not just the police officers. There was a major supervision problem, starting with the sergeants up to the lieutenants, captains, commanders, deputy chiefs and the chief for not bringing this forward.

"These young, unsupervised officers at Rampart were embarrassing the entire department," he continues. "We needed to get rid of everyone involved. There was a conspiracy going on. If you didn't get with the program at Rampart, you were crucified. They'd dig into your personal life and rumors would get spread around that you were a lying scum. That's why there was a code of silence. The good officers saw what was going on and transferred out. That's why they had so many transfers at Rampart. I saw that something was wrong and I brought it forward. But then my own chief suppressed it."

The scandal only came to light when Perez decided to cop a plea for leniency. (He is serving a prison term of only five years for his rogue police career.) Yet by allowing Perez to trade information for immunity, the LAPD and D.A.'s office gave the dirty cop power over how the investigation proceeded.

"Now, Perez is calling the shots," Poole complains. "The worst thing the D.A. could have done was to give immunity to Perez. But the D.A.'s office was duped. Had the D.A.'s office had all this information from the beginning, they would never have given that deal to Perez. They could have gotten him on 25-to-life. Now Perez and his attorneys are running the show."

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