LAPD SUSPENDS 11 OFFICERS IN CORRUPTION INQUIRY

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Nearly a dozen suspended police officers were allegedly
dealing drugs or covering up for others who were, it was reported Thursday.

Ten officers and a supervisor have been suspended with pay as a result of
the allegations.

The corruption probe was expected to lead to the release of at least one
state prison inmate.

"I would not like to label the LAPD as corruption-prone," Chief Bernard
Parks said Wednesday. "I think we have a small number of officers that have
chosen to, in some instances, tarnish their badge"

The police department declined to detail the allegations against the
suspended officers, but unidentified sources quoted by the Los Angeles Times
said they are suspected of a variety of crimes, from active participation in
drug deals to code-of-silence violations that allowed delinquent behavior to
go unpunished.

No criminal charges have been filed, police spokesman Don Cox said.

All of the suspended officers worked at one point in the Rampart station,
which handles one of the largest immigrant neighborhoods in the city, Parks
said. Also suspected is a former officer recently fired by the department.

Some of the alleged crimes were uncovered during an internal investigation
of a 1996 police shooting involving a man who allegedly pointed a gun at
officers, the department said. Javier Ovando, 19 at the time, was later
convicted of assault.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office is now seeking to have
Ovando released from state prison.

"The case is so hopelessly compromised by the actions of the arresting
officers and the officers who testified at the trial that the case must be
dismissed in the interest of justice," said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for
the district attorney.

Information implicating the officers also stemmed from the case of former
officer Rafael Antonio Perez, 32, who pleaded guilty to stealing more than
eight pounds of cocaine from an evidence locker.

Perez is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 22 and remains in jail on $700,000 bail.

The 9-year LAPD officer was accused of stealing cocaine between Jan. 5 and
March 2 in 1998. Perez allegedly forged another officer's name to sign out
the drugs, which had an estimated street value of $1 million.

A former partner of Perez, former officer David Anthony Mack, 38, was
sentenced Monday to 14 years and three months for a $722,000 bank robbery in
1997, in which most of the money has not been found.

Mack, who was with the LAPD nine years, was credited with saving Perez's
life by killing a drug dealer in 1993.

Mack allegedly went on a spending spree after the bank robbery, including a
Las Vegas trip with Perez and another officer.