POLICE PROBE FORCES SUSPENSION OF RAMPART ANTI-GANG INJUNCTIONS

Courts: The two orders targeting the 18th Street gang hinged in part on
officers' statements. A key figure in the inquiry now says some were false.

Prosecutors said Monday that they were immediately suspending enforcement
of two sweeping anti-gang injunctions affecting more than 100 members of
the notorious 18th Street gang as the fallout from the LAPD corruption
scandal spread.

The court orders, touted by Mayor Richard Riordan, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti
and City Atty. James K. Hahn as key tools in combating street violence,
were based in part on sworn declarations from at least eight officers now
swept up in the expanding probe, according to records and interviews.

The investigation, centered in large part on LAPD's Rampart Division
anti-gang squad known as Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums or
CRASH, is examining charges of illegal shootings, beatings, shakedowns of
drug dealers and evidence planting.

One former unit officer, Rafael Perez, has cast doubt on the legality of at
least two shooting incidents recounted by police to help win the 1997 and
1998 injunctions, which severely limit gang members' activities, records
show. Perez has been cooperating with investigators to gain leniency for
stealing cocaine from an LAPD evidence room. In one case, a chilling
portrayal of an assault-weapon-wielding gang member bursting into a Pico
Union apartment and threatening Perez and his partner was fabricated, Perez
told investigators. He also has described a 1996 police shooting involving
18th Street gang members and cited in the injunction case as dirty.

In addition, former Rampart CRASH Officer Brian Hewitt, since fired in
connection with an alleged beating of an ex-gang member, filed a key
injunction declaration describing the gang's varied criminal activities in
the area. Hewitt's attorney has said that the allegations against his
client are not well-founded.

Marty Vranicar, a supervising deputy city attorney in the anti-gang
section, said that given information "that leaves us to believe some of the
[officers'] declarations . . . may not have been truthful," all enforcement
of the Pico Union area injunctions is being suspended. And today Vranicar
and county prosecutors are expected to go before the Superior Court judge
overseeing one of the injunctions to request a delay in further proceedings.

Garcetti told reporters Monday that continued use of the injunctions is
compromised because Perez provided key declarations about 18th Street, but
now is laying out a tale of alleged abuses and illegalities by police. "We
can't get around the fact," Garcetti said, "that Perez was an important
[injunction] witness."

Noting that the scope of the corruption probe still appears to be
expanding, Vranicar said, "We don't know when this is going to be cleared
up." Vranicar and Garcetti noted that prosecutors assembled declarations
from dozens of officers--most of whom have not been implicated in
wrongdoing. Still, records show that members of the Rampart unit figured
prominently in forming the foundation of the injunction case. Judges in
injunction cases have tended to rely heavily on police accounts of gang
activity, submitted under penalty of perjury. Gang members are often not
represented by legal counsel. When they do put up a legal fight, their
credibility is undercut by criminal records. However, the current
corruption probe could alter that dynamic and boost arguments by attorneys
for gang members, who have accused police of inciting gang violence and
violating their rights.

For example, accusations of misconduct and perjury against Rampart Division
officers were unsuccessfully raised last year by attorneys representing
several reputed 18th Street members.

In a June 1998 declaration, Eduardo Hernandez said he was beaten by Rampart
Division officers who smashed his head several times against a concrete wall.

"Take it like a man," Hernandez quoted one officer as telling him. Arguing
that the injunction should be denied, attorney Pamela L. Schleher contended
in court documents that the prosecutor's "reliance [on] officers'
declarations, which are tainted . . . renders plaintiff's hands unclean."
It is unclear what effect suspension of the injunctions will have on
controlling gang crime in the Rampart area, west of downtown. Crime has
been falling in the area for a variety of reasons. And only a small number
of arrests have been made for violations of the injunctions, which ban gang
members from gathering in public.

Some recent studies have attacked injunctions as ineffective and
unconstitutional.

But the current controversy is not dissuading his office, Vranicar said.
Several injunctions outside of the Rampart area continue to be enforced, he
said, and more are in the works.