GANGSTA COPS

While police brutality in New York and--finally--law enforcement abuses at
Waco have attracted national press coverage, a massive cop scandal in Los
Angeles has garnered relatively little attention outside Southern
California. Within L.A., however, the expanding circle of revelations and
allegations is regarded as the worst police scandal since the 1930s, when
the thin blue line essentially served as the enforcement arm of the city's
infamous patronage system.

At the center of the new scandals is Rafael Perez, an officer in the
anti-gang CRASH unit. (The now-ironic acronym stands for "Community
Resources Against Street Hoodlums.'') Perez had been convicted of stealing
$1 million worth of cocaine from the evidence room and, in exchange for a
lighter sentence, he implicated fellow cops in a host of other crimes.

The most notorious: the time Perez and his partner handcuffed an unarmed
teenager, shot him in the head, planted a rifle near his body, and then
claimed they had acted in self-defense. Their victim, Javier Ovando, was
paralyzed by the assault and sentenced to 23 years in jail on the officers'
perjured testimony.

Several of Perez's charges have been corroborated by other officers, many
of whom have added new allegations of their own.

At press time, more than a dozen cops have been relieved of duty. Ovando
and another prisoner have already been released from jail, a third victim
has been released from parole, and dozens more may be set free. A series of
civilian lawsuits is also expected.

The CRASH unit has been almost completely discredited in the public eye.

Frighteningly, these revelations come as more and more police departments
are adopting the military-style tactics that CRASH embraced.

Who's supposed to protect us when a militarized police force starts
adopting gangster values?