GETTING TO BOTTOM AND TOP

For a true cleanup, investigators must find out how deep and how high the
Rampart corruption reaches.

It sounded like an over-the-top television script, but these were real-life
allegations in the Los Angeles Police Department: corrupt cops planting rock
cocaine on unsuspecting victims; officers selling stolen drugs to
traffickers instead of arresting them; cops kidnapping gang members,
stripping them naked and dropping them in rival gang territory; cops
shooting a man and then allowing him to bleed to death while they concocted
a scenario to justify the shooting; cops awarding each other plaques, with
highest honors going to those who not only wound but kill. Allegations of
police planting evidence--the mere possibility of which was scoffed at
during the O.J. Simpson trial--are now just one of a long list of charges
being leveled against the LAPD.

Investigators must get to the absolute bottom of the scandal. And the top,
as in how high in the ranks does it go?

To date, the brunt of the corruption probe rests on the statements of former
LAPD anti-gang officer Rafael Perez, who is seeking a sentence reduction for
cocaine theft. Perez is said to have fared poorly on a polygraph test. That
will no doubt give prosecutors some pause, even though some of his
statements have been corroborated. That makes it incumbent for Police Chief
Bernard C. Parks and Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti to demonstrate they are on the
same page and doing everything they can to encourage the gathering of more
evidence.

Already we have suggested that the Police Department might temporarily ease
its internal rules to encourage officers who have relevant information to
come forward. This is not to let the lethargic district attorney's office
off the hook. Garcetti should move more aggressively. He can let it be known
that limited or full criminal immunity on a case-by-case basis is possible
for officers who can provide key information.

In at least two modern scandals involving local law enforcement, the Los
Angeles County district attorney's office offered some degree of immunity
from prosecution to former sheriff's deputies in exchange for information
and testimony against other deputies. One was the now infamous drug money
skimming case against seven deputies in 1990. The second was in 1996,
against a deputy accused of planting evidence and trumping up charges
against minority suspects. In the former, limited immunity was even granted
to some drug dealers.

The real scope of the Rampart scandal seems finally to have dawned on city
officials. Maybe it was the briefing in which the City Council learned that
it faces perhaps more than $125 million in settlements stemming from
lawsuits of suspects falsely charged, convicted and incarcerated. Maybe it
was the more than 70 LAPD officers who are under investigation or the
hundreds and perhaps thousands of prosecutions that must be reviewed.

Now, there is a rising chorus of those who wonder whether the LAPD, despite
the voluminous work of its board of inquiry, is really capable of policing
itself. Some have called for an independent commission or for a takeover of
the investigation by the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI. These calls are
worth consideration, given that so many local law enforcement careers and
even political reputations may be at stake.

Clearly, the LAPD must be more open about its progress and findings.
Inspector General Jeffrey Eglash of the city's Police Commission, for
example, has regularly attended internal LAPD meetings on the scandal and
reported back to the commissioners. But the commissioners, as public
representatives appointed by the mayor and City Council, should have had far
more to say about the scandal by now. Their role is vitally important, as
they will be expected to assess the LAPD's own inquiry and determine, in
part, whether it was adequate.

At the bottom are these unanswered questions: How could Rampart officers
stage crime scenes and falsify as much evidence as has been alleged without
someone far up the chain of command getting wind of something gone horribly
awry? And what, beyond Chief Parks' wish list for more resources, will
ensure that this will never happen again? Without some assurance that Parks
has a handle on that, the calls for independent investigations will only
grow louder.