CHIEF PARKS ORDERS CURRENT ANTI-GANG UNITS DISBANDED

'We're starting from scratch,' one official says. CRASH program
will be scrapped and restructured for better oversight. Officers will be
limited to three-year stints.

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks on Friday abolished the
department's anti-gang CRASH units like the one at the center of the
LAPD's growing corruption scandal.

The existing anti-gang units and other specialized details must
disband in two weeks, Parks said. Those units will then be completely
restructured to ensure better oversight and control.

"We're starting from scratch," said LAPD Cmdr. David J.
Kalish.

All the officers who work those units now will be reassigned to patrol
within their divisions. The department will implement a new selection
process for the new anti-gang details, emphasizing, among other
things, an officer's experience.

Assignments to the new units will be limited to three-year tours,
Kalish said.

As part of his response to the Rampart corruption scandal, Parks on
Friday signed an 18-page order detailing how he will reorganize the
specialized units, which perform some of the department's most
dangerous and street-level police work.

"It is important to continually assess and modify the system, as this
will provide additional oversight and review of this critical
function," Parks said in a statement.

Parks' order reads as if he went down a to-do list based on the
testimony of ex-Officer Rafael Perez, who exposed many of the systemic
problems with the Rampart CRASH unit during hours of interviews with
investigators before his sentencing on cocaine theft charges.

Many of Perez's allegations were substantiated in an internal LAPD
report released this week, which noted that Rampart CRASH officers
operated with little or no supervision and routinely ignored LAPD
rules on use of informants, booking and interviewing of arrestees and
conducting undercover operations.

Perez, who was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing eight
pounds of cocaine, also told investigators that many officers in the
Rampart CRASH unit conspired to frame innocent people, beat suspects
and cover up unjustified shootings.

Police officials said many of the transgressions at Rampart CRASH were
possible because the unit was housed away from the main police station
and worked with little supervision. Under the chief's new order, such
arrangements will be prohibited.

The CRASH name, which stood for Community Resources Against Street
Hoodlums, is being abolished and replaced by the far more generic
title of "gang detail." The new gang details, new "career criminal
details" and similar squads will make up a new entity that will be
known as the "Special Enforcement Unit."

The requirements for joining the new gang detail will be more rigorous
than before, when officers essentially just voted in or personally
sponsored new members. Supervisors in the gang details must have one
year of experience as patrol supervisors. The officers must have three
years on the job, two of which must have been spent in patrol.

The chief's order does not address the adoption of logos and insignia
by some specialized units, such as the one embraced by Rampart CRASH
officers, which depicted a grinning skull wearing a cowboy hat with
the so-called "dead man's" poker hand splayed out behind it. That
symbol was not only worn on Rampart CRASH officers' jackets and
shirts, but also was tattooed on some officers' arms. Other CRASH
units had similar logos. Kalish said that issue will be addressed by
the chief at another time.

Though LAPD officials say that the department will never give up its
gang enforcement operations, the demise of CRASH effectively ends a
program that was established in 1979.

There are about 240 CRASH officers throughout the city, with
individual units varying in size from four to 26 officers. Their
primary mission, according to LAPD documents, "is the prevention of
gang activity through high-visibility patrol and aggressive
enforcement by uniformed officers whose responsibilities are to seek
out and identify gang members and their hangouts and to discourage
gang activities." The mission of the new gang detail is not expected
to significantly change.

Under the chief's order, CRASH will be disbanded March 12. The new
gang detail will start work about a month later. In the interim, LAPD
officials will be selecting officers for the new units and auditing
many of the gang files and reports at the LAPD's 18 divisions.

Kalish said patrol officers will pay attention to gang problems in
their areas during the month in which the department establishes the
new gang units.

"This is not a free month for gang members to run wild," Kalish
said.

The new officers selected for those units will undergo special
training on their mission and their policing strategies, Kalish said.

One former Rampart CRASH officer said he was skeptical about the
motivation behind the proposed changes. "If they're doing this because
it's what the public wants to hear, then I think it's a bad idea,"
said the officer, who asked not to be identified.

On the other hand, he said, "Gangs are probably the most pressing
problem in the city. So [anti-gang] units should get the best people
and the most resources."

Although he favored increasing the experience level in such units, the
former CRASH officer said he disagreed with limiting tours of duty to
three years.

"You don't start getting to know who the players are in the
neighborhood for six months or year," he said.

And once officers start to make arrests, he said, "I don't see why you
should penalize somebody for doing a good job."

Ted Hunt, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said
the union's leadership has worked with the chief on the proposed
changes and did not oppose them. He said the changes probably will
improve oversight of such crucial units.

"No copper wants to get in trouble," Hunt said. "We believe this will
help put the brakes on anything that might become a problem in the
future."

The chief's order grows out of a recommendation in the Board of
Inquiry's Rampart report.

Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director of the American Civil
Liberties Union of Southern California, called the chief's order a
"positive step."

"But it's inadequate in the effort to restore confidence in the
operations of the LAPD," Schroeder added. "We renew our call on the
city leaders to create an independent blue ribbon commission that can
look at the systemic problems throughout the department."

City Council members--who Friday received individual briefings on the
LAPD's plan--said they were pleased with the department's decision to
restructure its gang enforcement efforts.

"Merely changing the name of CRASH is not acceptable," said Councilman
Mike Feuer. "We have to have an effective strategy. There needs to be
close scrutiny given to how we deal with gang violence. And we have to
do it right now."

The LAPD's announcement comes at time when the council is struggling
to find ways to pay for lawsuits growing out of the Rampart scandal.
On Monday, the city's chief administrative officer is expected to
release a report calling for the council to consider using judgment
obligation bonds--instead of the city's tobacco settlement funds--to
pay for an anticipated onslaught of legal settlements.

The matter will be taken up by the council's Budget and Finance
Committee on Wednesday. Attorney Stephen Yagman, a frequent and vocal
critic of the LAPD, was unimpressed with the proposed change to the
department's gang unit.

"I think it's meaningless," said Yagman, who is representing numerous
clients in civil cases stemming from the corruption scandal.
"Disbanding CRASH is useless without terminating the officers who were
members of CRASH, because they're just going to go to other
assignments and keep doing bad things."