L.A. COULD PAY DEARLY FOR POLICE SCANDAL

LOS ANGELES -- For months, the city seemed prepared to let the LAPD
police its own ranks and root out officers accused of robbing, framing
and shooting suspects in one of Los Angeles' grittiest sections.

But a series of new allegations -- that an anti-gang unit held parties
to celebrate shootings, spread ketchup to imitate blood at a crime
scene and handed out plaques for killings -- have widened the scandal,
threatening to wreck the city budget with a barrage of expected lawsuits.

Last week, the state attorney general's office said it would take a
larger role in the investigation, which is looking at corruption
between 1995 and 1998. The FBI has also contacted the LAPD about
taking part, and civil rights activists want an independent
investigator.

On Thursday, Mayor Richard Riordan recommended spending roughly $100
million in tobacco-settlement money to cover anticipated lawsuits.

"The Rampart scandal may well be the worst manmade disaster this city
has ever faced," City Council member Joel Wachs said.

At least 11 officers, and perhaps as many as 20, have been relieved of
duty, and 40 convictions have been overturned since the scandal broke
last fall. Dozens of other criminal cases are under
investigation.

The tainted convictions will cost the city at least $125 million in
lawsuit awards, an official estimate indicated.

Under Riordan's proposal, the city would give up its 25-year share of
national tobacco settlement money -- as much as $300 million -- to get
$100 million up front. The alternative would be to cut city services
or raise taxes, he said.

"There's a great consequence for the public," said Hubert Williams,
president of the Police Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit
research group. "This is almost an invisible tax. The money that would
ordinarily benefit the citizens of Los Angeles now is being set aside."

Los Angeles was once held up as an example of how a big city should be
policed. Then came the Rodney King beating and accusations of
incompetence in the O.J. Simpson case.

The latest scandal may tarnish the LAPD's image for
years.

"It's cast a shadow on all police officers," City Council member Hal
Bernson said.

At the heart of the scandal is the Rampart Division's Community
Resources Against Street Hoodlums, or CRASH, an elite anti-gang unit.
Rampart handles a drug- and gang-infested area near downtown that
Police Chief Bernard C. Parks said is considered the "most violent 10
square miles in the city." CRASH cops often are considered the toughest.

In seeking leniency for stealing cocaine from an evidence locker,
former Officer Rafael Perez told LAPD investigators about officers who
had skull tattoos, planted guns on people and beat handcuffed suspects
at the police station.

Perez also said he stole thousands of dollars from drug dealers, paid
a drug-addicted informant with cocaine and slept with another.

Several "bad" shootings were covered up, he alleged. In one case, a
supervisor allegedly spread ketchup over a crime scene to make it
appear that a rookie cop who shot an unarmed man hiding in a closet
thought he saw blood and was about to be shot.

Parks and civil libertarians blame problems in the entire LAPD -- not
just the Rampart Division.

The chief wants a $9 million "integrity package" of reforms to prevent
scandals.

The 100 or so proposals include reining in CRASH and other special
units, giving lie detector tests to all officer candidates, beefing up
the Internal Affairs Division and setting up sting operations to trap
bad officers.