LAPD Officer's Testimony Called Fabricated

Some of the most persuasive police testimony used by prosecutors to obtain
a sweeping anti-gang injunction in Los Angeles was made up, according to a
fired Rampart Division officer who is cooperating with investigators.

Former Officer Rafael A. Perez, testifying in secret to obtain a lesser
sentence for stealing cocaine from the Los Angeles Police Department's
property room, has labeled as fabricated a chilling portrayal of
out-of-control gang violence served up by police and prosecutors to justify
an unprecedented legal crackdown on the 18th Street gang.

In a sworn court declaration, Officer Nino Durden, who was Perez's partner,
described the two officers being confronted by an assault weapon-wielding
18th Street member who burst through a closed door in a vacant Pico-Union
apartment building.

"He failed to comply with my commands and pointed the guns toward my
partner and I in a threatening manner," Durden's declaration said. "An
officer-involved shooting occurred . . . and the [gang member] is now
serving [23 years] for an attempted homicide on a police officer."

The officer's dramatic statement was used by the Los Angeles County
district attorney and the city attorney to help win one of the most
sweeping anti-gang injunctions ever handed down in a Los Angeles court
against dozens of 18th Street members in the Rampart Division. Now that the
truth of the declaration has been questioned, the future use of the
injunctions could be in jeopardy.

As part of the largest unfolding LAPD corruption investigation in 60 years,
Perez has already told department investigators that the gang member
referred to in Durden's declaration was unarmed and handcuffed when he was
shot. The officers then framed the victim with a planted rifle, Perez told
investigators. Perez made the admission as part of a plea bargain in his
cocaine-stealing case. Durden could not be reached for comment.

The gang member, Javier Francisco Ovando, was freed from state prison
Thursday at the request of prosecutors. He has been confined to a
wheelchair since the shooting.

A dozen LAPD officers have been relieved of duty or forced to leave the
department in the expanding investigation. Perez has been fired and Durden
has been placed on leave. The investigation was begun internally by the
LAPD and has been joined by federal authorities looking into possible civil
rights violations by Rampart officers against suspects who were shot,
beaten or allegedly shaken down.

Another man, Jose Perez, has told The Times that Rampart officers in July
1996 killed his friend and shot him in the back, then tried to frame him.
Former Officer Perez has told LAPD investigators that the shooting was
"dirty."

The shootings and other allegations are focusing intense scrutiny on the
Rampart Division gang suppression unit known as CRASH, a citywide program
whose acronym stands for Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums.

"I think this has blown the top off an ongoing pattern of misconduct that
has been occurring for a long, long time," said Dennis W. Chang, an
attorney for Ovando family members.

The consequences of the spreading police inquiry already have partially
undermined two court injunctions against 18th Street gang members.

Spokespersons for Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and City Atty. James K. Hahn
said Friday that they were reviewing the sworn statements provided by
Durden, Perez and other Rampart officers. As a result, Garcetti's office
said enforcement of the injunctions, which restrict gang members'
activities, have been suspended in the case of several 18th Streeters. Both
prosecutorial offices said they were seeking a postponement of a hearing on
one of the injunctions set for this week.

The elite, hard-charging Rampart CRASH squad had a reputation for
heavy-handed tactics among some residents of the neighborhoods west of
downtown. Its officers roamed the busy streets and dark alleys in unmarked
Chevrolets, the first line of defense against about 30 street gangs
battling block by block for turf and lucrative drug profits.

The 8-square-mile Rampart Division is home to the densest population west
of the Mississippi. It has one of Southern California's heaviest
concentrations of transient and disaffected immigrants, and of working-poor
families.

And it is there, where police deal daily with some of the most grueling
workloads in Los Angeles, that Durden, Perez and at least 10 other officers
are under scrutiny in a wide-ranging probe of possible illegal shootings,
shakedowns of drug dealers and cover-ups.

How Much Did Supervisors Know?

Durden's willingness, under penalty of perjury, to offer up an allegedly
fabricated tale of the 1996 Ovando shooting underscores some of the
investigators' central concerns.

Inside the tightknit world of one of the city's proudest and busiest
anti-gang units, had officers succumbed to--or purposely overlooked--a
culture of lying and misconduct?

Was this reflective of one or two rogue officers or a larger group that had
spun out of control, taking the law into its own hands and mirroring the
actions of the gangs the officers were assigned to control?

And perhaps more important, where were their supervisors?

"You've asked the $64,000 question," said Cmdr. James McMurray, head of the
LAPD's Internal Affairs Group. "I think we're gonna find out."

CRASH officers, particularly in the Rampart Division, operate in an intense
environment. This was especially true during the late 1980s and early
1990s, when gang violence surged to record highs.

Emboldened gangs, in some cases working closely with the prison-based
Mexican Mafia, had expanded into drug sales, racketeering, street extortion
and contract murders.

In 1992, when homicides in Los Angeles hit their peak, Rampart was the most
violent of the LAPD's 18 divisions.

Among other things, the division's CRASH officers had to contend with the
violent core of two mega-gangs--Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street--which
regularly topped the city's list of involvement in murders, robberies and
witness intimidation.

CRASH responded with forceful tactics of its own. The unit's officers often
rolled out after dark, zipping back and forth across the neighborhoods
around MacArthur Park. They rousted suspected gang members on street
corners, lining them up with their hands behind their heads, patting them
down and interrogating them about alleged gang activity.

"You go in there and rock 'n' roll," said one LAPD veteran who worked CRASH
operations in Rampart. "It's a group think. It's a kick-ass think."

That gung-ho attitude fostered a climate ripe for abuses, the officer said.

Mix of Ill Will and Gratitude

"They figure these guys are gang members, they're here illegal. If [the
gangbangers] didn't do something, they'd plant something on them.

"It keeps 'dummy' off the street, keeps [arrest] numbers up, and everyone's
happy. You would hear a spattering of that. It's very hush-hush."

Some LAPD sources complain that CRASH officers are often the targets of
fabrications themselves. Gang members try to pile misconduct complaints on
officers, hoping to get them transferred out of the neighborhood, the
sources say.

"I've seen evidence of that," said McMurray, the Internal Affairs commander.

The Rampart CRASH unit's aggressiveness has engendered a mix of ill will
and gratitude among residents. Many are less concerned about gang members'
civil rights being violated than about the elimination of what they view as
a constant threat to their families and businesses.

But the images of officers routinely pulling over young Latinos has left
many residents leery. Such suppression tactics, they say, can sweep up
innocent youths.

Max Ocon, a longtime Rampart area businessman and member of the division's
community policing advisory board, said relations between police and
residents hit a low in the mid-1990s--the period under scrutiny by
investigators.

In 1996, he said, "there were many abuses by the police. . . . They treated
the people like animals."

Residents found themselves coping with a "double-edged sword--on one side
there were gangs, and the other side the police," said Ocon, adding that
relations with the police have improved significantly since then.

Complaints About CRASH Tactics

He and others question whether the allegations of egregious conduct being
investigated would have occurred--or gone unnoticed for as long a
period--in more affluent areas of the city, such as parts of the Westside
or San Fernando Valley.

Many members of Rampart's large Latino immigrant population hesitate to
speak up against the gangs or the police out of fear of retribution or
deportation. Police have claimed that the gangs have monitored 911
dispatches to determine who is cooperating with authorities.

Many of the residents have also come from countries where police corruption
and human rights violations are more the norm than the exception.

"Our community is one that does not complain because of fear . . . fear of
immigration [officials] or the gangs," Ocon said.

But some people did complain.

Officials at Police Watch, a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles that
monitors police abuse and collects complaints, say they received many
misconduct complaints involving Rampart Division officers during the period
under investigation by authorities.

LAPD records do not show an inordinate number of complaints at Rampart.

In August 1994, according to Police Watch, a 28-year-old Latino said he was
beaten and wrongfully arrested by Officer Perez. The man told the group he
was sitting in his car when Perez and another officer pulled up about 9:30
at night. After he was ordered out of his car, the man said, he asked Perez
what was going on. This sparked an angry response, according to the man's
statement to Police Watch.

"Perez grabbed [the man] by the arm [and] punched him in the mouth," the
statement says. He was then "thrown to the ground [and] cuffed. One officer
then put his foot on subject's head."

New Captain to Deal With Fallout

The man said he suffered bruises, strained muscles and a swollen left knee.
He was arrested for hitting Perez, according to the complaint.

Perez's lawyer, Winston McKesson, said he was not aware of any lawsuits or
disciplinary actions against his client. Given Perez's admission of
wrongdoing as part of a cooperation deal with investigators, McKesson said,
"What you're going to find is people coming out of the woodwork" with
complaints about Perez's behavior.

Another complaint was filed by the mother of a gang member. She alleged
that CRASH officers ransacked her home in November 1995 when they executed
a search warrant in pursuit of her son.

"Officers went through the house pulling everything out," she said in her
Police Watch statement.

Her son was not home, but surrendered the next day. Two days after that,
she said, he came home with his face "swollen and bruised."

The mother asked her son what happened. He told her to "leave it alone,
because he had to stay there [in the area]," according to the statement.

Rampart CRASH officers saw themselves as working against deep-rooted,
menacing forces. Their views were captured in a series of sworn
declarations filed in support of the two court injunctions against 18th
Street gang members. Among those were statements by Perez, Durden and other
officers under investigation.

One of the suspended officers provided a lengthy overview of the gang's
assaults, shootings and threats. "These crimes are committed against rival
gang members, innocent civilians and even police officers," the declaration
stated.

Perez, who called himself a "narcotics expert" with more than 600 drug
arrests under his belt, described citizen pleas for help and some of his
efforts to control ongoing drug sales.

As the investigation into Rampart corruption proceeds, many questions will
focus on who may have known about the alleged wrongdoing and supervision
failures within the police station.

There have been persistent concerns about the quality of supervision of
CRASH details in general, according to some current and former LAPD
officials.

"Ever since I have been involved in the process, there has been more of a
concern about CRASH units because the level of direct supervision always
appeared to be less [than] in some of the other LAPD units," said former
LAPD Inspector General Katherine Mader.

The new Rampart captain brought in to deal with the repercussions of the
corruption probe said he expects the LAPD to emphasize more frequent
rotation of officers through intense units such as CRASH.

"I have to deal with what's happening right now," said Capt. Bob Hansohn.

"I don't know what the environment was back in 1996. But to my officers the
message always sent out is: 'The end never justifies the means.' "

[sidebar]

RAMPART DIVISION

The LAPD's Rampart Division is home to some of the most crime-plagued
streets in Los Angeles and about 30 street gangs. With its densely packed
neighborhoods and heavily immigrant population, the area is considered one
of the toughest policing assignments in the city. The division's anti-gang
unit is the focus of a sweeping corruption investigation. Below is a look
at the area compared with other LAPD divisions.