LAPD ANTI-GANG UNIT 'AN ENTITY UNTO ITSELF"

REPORT: Internal study says scandal resulted from failure of officers
and supervisors to adhere to policies.

LOS ANGELES - Officers in an anti-gang unit at the center of the LAPD
corruption scandal believed they were waging a life-or-death struggle
with the drug pushers and street hoodlums they encountered daily,
according to an internal report released Wednesday.

The unit "routinely made up its own rules and, for all intents and
purposes, was left to function with little or no oversight."

The rogue actions and rule-bending attitude of its officers became
known as the "Rampart Way," referring to a district near downtown
considered the toughest in the city.

The Board of Inquiry, which investigated for six months, concluded
that the unit "developed its own culture and operated as an entity
unto itself."

The police department's 362-page report recommended 108 changes in
department policies and procedures. But the board also largely
endorsed current policies and procedures, saying the scandal was a
result of officers and supervisors failing to carry them out.

The scandal has led to 40 convictions being overturned and 20 officers
being relieved of duty, with city officials estimating liability could
cost taxpayers more than $100 million. More than 15 civil damage suits
have been filed.

Over the weekend, about two dozen attorneys met in the Los Angeles
office of attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. to discuss whether the
scandal can be used as a springboard for widespread police reform.

With the city's reputation and coffers at stake, the scandal also has
generated backbiting between officials. Disagreements are being raised
over the need for an independent review and the speed with which the
District Attorney's office is pursuing criminal charges against bad
cops.

The scandal might have been avoided if supervisors had noticed a
troubling series of red flags first raised in the mid-1980s, the
report said.

"Pursuits, injuries resulting from uses of force, officer-involved
shooting and personnel complaints had a clearly identifiable pattern
... Yet no one seems to have noticed and, more importantly, dealt
with the patterns," the report said.

Symbolic of the anti-gang unit's anything-goes approach was its logo -
a grinning skull in a cowboy hat with the so called dead man's poker
hand arrayed behind it. Officers worked with little contact or control
from supervisors and sometimes signed a sergeant's name to arrest
reports, the report said.

In one incident at the end of the 1992 riots, a supervisor found the
unit's members playing cards and working out when they should have
been on patrol. Two days after complaining to a superior, the
supervisor found the tires on his personal vehicle slashed, the report
said.

"We think this is a very exhaustive investigation of our systems, our
management style, our issues that we think may have caused the
opportunity for this issue of corruption in Rampart," Police Chief
Bernard C. Parks said.

The report targeted poor paperwork, lax supervision and poor
understanding of police rules and policies. Mostly, it was a case of
"people failing to do their jobs."