ABUSE CLAIMS WENT UNPROBED AT 77TH ST. STATION

As the police corruption scandal grows around the Rampart Division,
accusations against anti-gang officers in another part of Los Angeles
underscore the city's lax handling of misconduct claims through much of the
1990s, including those involving its hard-charging CRASH units.

In five weeks in late 1995, officers from the LAPD's 77th Street Division
anti-gang squad were accused of brutalizing and trampling the rights of two
families at gatherings in their homes--cases that cost taxpayers nearly
half a million dollars to settle.

A 15-year-old was smacked in the mouth with a shotgun butt in one incident,
court records show, and his father was suffocated until he passed out and
ended up in a hospital. Family members in both cases say that they
complained to police about the alleged misconduct in South-Central Los
Angeles.

Yet, despite the seriousness of the allegations and the cost to the city
treasury, the LAPD did not conduct investigations of either incident. The
result was not just an oversight breakdown in a pair of highly charged
confrontations.

According to longtime LAPD critics, those cases also are emblematic of a
larger failure: A Police Department that despite years of prodding and
demands for change, nevertheless persisted in ignoring credible claims of
misconduct and in resisting calls for systems intended to identify problem
officers.

And today, with the Rampart disclosures regularly rocking the LAPD, the
allegations out of 77th Street also suggest that the LAPD missed important
opportunities to improve its systems of oversight and supervision. Had it
done so, department leaders might have been in a better position to spot
troubling patterns in Rampart and elsewhere.

At the center of the alleged abuses in 77th Street was a well-known
officer--described by a supervisor as notorious among gang members--who was
later fired. His credibility as an officer was permanently damaged, an LAPD
discipline board found, when he gave false statements to investigators
after he unnecessarily choked a man in an off-duty altercation.

LAPD officials, in response to the Rampart scandal, are scrutinizing the
supervision and operations of the elite anti-gang units known as CRASH, or
Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums.

At least 12 officers have been relieved of duty as authorities probe
accusations that Rampart CRASH members illegally shot suspects, framed one
man, improperly beat another, stole drugs, falsified evidence and covered
up a wide range of misconduct.

Years Later, Many Questions Unanswered

Many of the alleged abuses occurred in the mid-1990s, after city officials
had been warned by a panel examining the Los Angeles riots that units such
as CRASH were straining relations in some neighborhoods. Moreover, the city
had been alerted repeatedly about gaps in the LAPD's tracking of misconduct
allegations by officials and watchdog panels such as the Christopher
Commission, which studied the LAPD in the wake of the 1991 Rodney G. King
beating by officers in Foothill Division.

Even now, despite improvements made under Chief Bernard C. Parks, the LAPD
and city lawyers are unable to answer basic questions about the
controversial CRASH squads.

Officials, for example, can't say how many misconduct complaints have been
lodged against the anti-gang details. Nor are they able to calculate how
much the city has paid in civil judgments and settlements involving CRASH
officers.

"It's sad. . . . We have for all these years lost the value" of a
comprehensive system to track misconduct claims filed against officers and
units such as CRASH, said Capt. Rick Wahler, who has taken over the
department's risk management unit.

The LAPD will begin tracking legal claims against officers and units next
year, Wahler said. It was only last year that the department began
centrally compiling all citizen complaints against officers and referring
legal claims to the Internal Affairs Group for possible investigation.

Filing a misconduct claim or paying settlements does not prove wrongdoing,
city officials stress.

Still, some observers say it is disturbing that the LAPD couldn't or
wouldn't move sooner to improve how it has tracked and investigated
misconduct claims.

"Putting together that kind of information would be an important management
tool to allow higher-ranking LAPD officers to determine potential problems
and patterns and 1/8decide 3/8 what, if anything, should be done about it,"
said attorney Mark H. Epstein, former deputy general counsel for the
Christopher Commission.

This is especially critical for units such as CRASH, which operate in an
intense and volatile environment and have built reputations for aggressive
police tactics. But the cases from 77th Street suggest that the LAPD was
lax even there, where supervision and tracking were needed most.

Former LAPD Officer Addis "Bart" Simpson, at 6 feet 2 and more than 250
pounds, was a physically imposing and well-regarded member of the 77th
Street CRASH crew. Simpson did not respond to requests for comment.

On a warm evening in September 1995, Simpson and his partner stopped near
104th Street and Figueroa to tell a woman not to let her child ride her
tricycle in the street. The officers, on loan to the Southeast Division,
said in depositions that they were concerned about the youngster's safety.
But according to the officers, a female shouted profanities at them and a
man tossed a bottle at their cruiser.

The melee that ensued was captured in part by a camera crew from the
television show "LAPD: Life on the Beat." As a result, there is videotape
of officers and residents shouting back and forth and of officers wrestling
some family members to the ground.

But the camera didn't capture the action in the house, where officers said
they subdued the suspected bottle thrower, Kunta Kinte Costello, because he
became aggressive. "He swung at me with a closed fist," Simpson said in his
deposition.

Family members had a different version, claiming that Simpson initiated the
confrontation by shouting at the woman outside the house.

Costello denied tossing a bottle and claimed he was jabbed in the chest
with a club when he requested a search warrant. He also alleged that
officers closed the front door and began striking him. "I balled up so I
couldn't get hit," he said in a deposition. " 1/8I 3/8 was feeling fists. I
was feeling metal, everything."

Several people were arrested on charges ranging from assault on an officer
to interfering with police, but most of the accusations were later dropped
or not proven. The smashed bottle that allegedly sparked the confrontation
was never collected as evidence.

But Simpson paused at the TV camera to recount how he was assaulted by the
woman who allegedly shouted profanities. "She was hitting me in the face,"
he chuckled, asking: "Am I still cute?"

Partly because the family had witnesses supporting their version of events,
the city paid $350,000 to settle various claims.

A month later, Simpson was back in the middle of the action. Hearing shots
fired in the area, officers from the 77th Street CRASH crew burst into
Santos Medina's home during a birthday party near Figueroa and 49th streets.

The CRASH officers, with a crew from the same TV show in tow, claimed they
were assaulted when they had to force their way into Medina's backyard to
investigate. "It was not a friendly party for the police," one of the
officers said in a deposition.

Officers said they pursued suspects into the house, including Santos
Medina, who was pulled away in the yard as he was being arrested. Inside,
as officers swarmed toward the father, Simpson hit 15-year-old Santos
Medina Jr. in the mouth with the butt of his shotgun, breaking a tooth and
bloodying his mouth, court records show.

Simpson maintained that his life was in danger. "He grabbed my shotgun
1/8and 3/8 was pulling real hard," Simpson said in his deposition. The
teenager, whose birthday was being celebrated, insists Simpson struck
without provocation.

In a bedroom, the Medinas said, an officer pinned the father on a bed,
pressing his face into the mattress until he passed out.

"They were on him completely, just choking him," the son said in an
interview, fighting back tears.

The father, now 62, was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where he
spent several days.

Seven people were arrested in connection with violations ranging from
interfering with an officer to felony resisting arrest. The charges were
later dismissed or reduced to misdemeanors.

As it turned out, the father said, a tenant living in a rear shed earlier
that evening had fired shots into the ground in a corner of the large
backyard. Police recovered a rifle from the shed and a handgun but
apparently never followed up to determine when the shots were fired and by
whom.

The city paid $125,000 to settle claims for damages, partly because the
officers' justification for being at the home was in dispute. Also, a video
showing children hitting a pinata, and adults preparing food, supported the
family's claim that the gathering was peaceful.

In both cases, city attorneys say, they believe the officers' versions, but
settled the lawsuits to avoid potentially larger costs.

Families Say They Were Ignored

There was another problem. Before the city settled the Costello case, an
LAPD discipline board recommended that Simpson be fired. He had been found
guilty of being discourteous, using unnecessary force and giving false
statements to LAPD investigators. The charges stemmed from an off-duty
altercation outside a 77th Street Division social gathering.

Simpson contested the firing, but a Superior Court judge ruled last month
that the evidence supported the LAPD's action. Simpson's attorney said the
decision may be appealed.

Family members in both cases say that they complained to officers or
investigators about alleged mistreatment, according to interviews and records.

LAPD policy has long required that even verbal complaints of physical abuse
made at a station be officially recorded and forwarded for review to
Internal Affairs, which can either open its own personnel investigation or
refer the matter back to the station to be probed.

The Police Department's failures to follow up on civilian complaints,
however, are legendary. In 1991, the LAPD ignored complaints about the
beating of Rodney King. The result: The videotape ended up at a local
television station.

Similarly, relatives in the 77th Street cases apparently were shunted
aside, according to records and interviews. LAPD officials could not recall
the episodes or explain why no personnel investigations were ordered. They
did note that some complaints still were disposed of informally at stations
in the early and mid-1990s.

Indeed, the Christopher Commission noted in 1991 that the LAPD had failed
to launch personnel investigations in a number of excessive force claims
that led to lawsuits. Concerned about such slipshod procedures, the panel
recommended that all such complaints be investigated by Internal Affairs,
and that a computerized tracking program be used to better monitor
complaints and potentially costly litigation.

The same year, City Council members also complained that many lawsuits
alleging police misconduct were being settled without internal
investigations of officers' actions.

Five years later, Special Counsel Merrick J. Bobb reported to the Police
Commission that the LAPD still lacked the comprehensive personnel tracking
system recommended by the Christopher Commission. Again, in 1997, the LAPD
inspector general reiterated some of the same concerns.

LAPD officials say they now are tracking all complaints and alerting
Internal Affairs to legal claims. Since that system was implemented last
year, a significantly larger number of complaints are being formally logged
against officers. But one result is that Internal Affairs investigators,
always pressed for time, are probing a smaller percentage of overall
complaints.

Even some attorneys who defend the LAPD support more Internal Affairs
misconduct investigations, saying they can help spot patterns, locate
witnesses and gather evidence while the incident is fresh.

"It often turns out that it's in our favor," said Deputy City Atty. Suzanne
Christiansen, who represented the LAPD in the Costello case.