INVESTIGATION TO ZERO IN ON L.A. POLICE

Wide-Ranging Corruption Is Alleged

LOS ANGELES -- Allegations that rogue cops shot unarmed suspects, planted
evidence and lied about it will be scrutinized by a special board of
inquiry, Police Chief Bernard Parks said Tuesday.

The probe also led a judge to suspend an injunction against the 18th Street
gang that barred the gang from gathering. The injunction was based on
declarations by some of the same officers now caught up in the corruption
case.

Deputy District Attorney David Demerjian said 15 people have been arrested
for violating the injunction. He claimed the quality of life in the
community will deteriorate as soon as gangs hear it was stayed.

The upending of the injunction -- part of a strategy for controlling gangs'
street activities -- was the latest repercussion of the investigation
focusing on officers working in the Rampart neighborhood west of downtown.

Parks later appeared before City Council members, who sought assurances
that the Police Commission's inspector general will have access to the
department's internal investigation and asked that the probe not limit
itself to the Rampart station.

At the center of the investigation is Rafael Perez, a former Rampart
station narcotics officer convicted of stealing $1 million worth of cocaine
from a police evidence room.

In an effort to obtain a lesser sentence, Perez has talked to
investigators, telling them of suspects being framed for crimes they didn't
commit, of officers lying in court to win convictions and, in some cases,
of officers shooting unarmed suspects, then accusing them of assault.

Calling corruption at the Los Angeles Police Department "a cancer ... that
has gone on a long time without being treated," Perez said he and other
officers routinely abused their power to win praise from their superiors.

Perez said that ambitious officers join the LAPD's anti-gang and other
specialized units, "trying to do the right thing, thinking they're doing
the right thing, trying to impress supervisors ... and stopping at nothing
to do that."

As he fulfilled his lifelong dream of being a narcotics officer, Perez, 32,
said he knew "no limit."

Perez is cooperating with investigators as part of a plea bargain agreement
in which he is expected to receive a five-year prison sentence for stealing
about 8 pounds of cocaine from the LAPD's evidence room.

He already has implicated himself and his former partner in a shooting that
left an unarmed man in a wheelchair and wrongfully imprisoned, and has
described as "dirty" at least one other Rampart shooting in which a man was
killed.

Investigators are probing allegations ranging from illegal shootings and
drug dealing to excessive use of force and "code of silence" offenses.

On Monday, police sources confirmed that a captain from the Rampart station
was among those facing punishment in connection with the scandal.

Capt. Richard Meraz, the station's second-highest officer, has been cited
for failing to supervise officers under his command, sources said.

According to those sources, Meraz has come under fire because a supervisor
in the station at one point brought an officer to the captain and said the
officer had witnessed the alleged beating of Ismael Jimenez inside the
Rampart station. Meraz's response, the sources said, was to say he did not
want to hear any details.

If true, those accusations could land Meraz in serious trouble, though he
is not a suspect in any of the alleged criminal wrongdoing under investigation.