PARALYZED INMATE ORDERED RELEASED FOLLOWING POLICE CORRUPTION PROBE

LOS ANGELES -- One of the largest police corruption scandals in city history
widened Friday as authorities began an investigation into a police shooting
that left a suspect dead. A man wounded and paralyzed by officers in another
shooting three years ago spent his first day in freedom after authorities
decided he was framed.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered Javier Francisco
Ovando's release from state prison as a result of the corruption probe.

Police Chief Bernard Parks has suspended 10 officers and a supervisor after
two internal investigations by the police department. The sweeping
allegations of corruption, including charges of drug dealing, have also
prompted a federal probe.

Ovando, although he was affiliated with a street gang, had no prior criminal
convictions before he was found guilty of assault on the officers. The
22-year-old Honduran native was sentenced to 23 years and four months in prison.

He is the father of a 2-year-old daughter, Destiny, with his girlfriend,
Monique Valenzuela. Ms. Valenzuela's mother said they were mocked during
Ovando's trial.

"The cops laughed in me and my daughter's face," Gloria Romero said at her
home Thursday. She said she told officers then, "God will punish you."

Ms. Romero, 40, said she knew Ovando was framed because he never carried a
weapon. Ovando has seen pictures of his daughter, but has never met her, she
said.

Federal authorities said Thursday they would conduct their own investigation
into the alleged corruption. Unidentified sources told the Los Angeles Times
on Thursday the officers had been dealing drugs or protecting those who
were. Authorities said police planted a gun on Ovando and fabricated
evidence to convict him.

"We will work with Chief Parks to learn all of the facts surrounding these
incidents and to deal with them appropriately," U.S. Attorney Alejandro
Mayorkas said.

The Times cited unidentified sources today who said detectives are looking
into a possible cover-up of a second shooting in 1996 that wounded one man
and killed another.

In that shooting, nine officers planned to arrest two armed gang members who
were allegedly hiding inside a building. According to an internal review,
four officers ended up firing a total of 10 rounds in an attempt to
apprehend the suspects.

One of the suspects was shot repeatedly and died later at an area hospital.
Jose Perez, then 19, was shot in the chest. He was charged with assault with
a deadly weapon on a police officer. Another person surrendered peacefully
but was charged with assault with a deadly weapon on an officer, the paper said.

Of the nine officers, at least five have been relieved of duty this week and
another has been fired, the Times said. Police have not made the reasons public.

The two shooting investigations were sparked partly by information from
former officer Rafael A. Perez. He pleaded guilty last week to stealing
eight pounds of cocaine from an evidence locker room and has cooperated with
police as part a plea bargain.

Perez, 32, reportedly told investigators he and former partner NiF1o Durden
planted a .22-caliber rifle on the unarmed Ovando after shooting him in
October 1996.

The Times said court documents show that Ovando told a detective in a
jailhouse interview that Perez and Durden shot him in the chest after he was
handcuffed. Perez then shot him point-blank in the head, Ovando told the
investigator.

Durden was relieved of duty last month pending a hearing on charges
unrelated to the Ovando case, including allegations of planting evidence and
making a false arrest.

Perez, a nine-year veteran, was a one-time partner of former Officer David
Mack, who was convicted earlier this year of bank robbery. Mack was
sentenced Monday to more than 14 years in federal prison for robbing a Bank
of America of $722,000.

All of the investigations have targeted the department's Rampart Station,
which covers an eight-square-mile area just west of downtown Los Angeles
that is home to many recent immigrants from Latin America and Asia.

Ovando had been confined to a wheelchair-accessible cell at the
maximum-security Salinas Valley State Prison since June 1997.

LAPD officers were at the prison to talk to Ovando and offered him a ride
back to Los Angeles and he accepted, said Kati Corsaut of the Department of
Corrections. She emphasized Ovando was not in custody. An LAPD spokesman,
Officer Don Cox, said he did not know where Ovando went after he was brought
back to Los Angeles.

"It kind of shakes everything that you believe about in everything. The
system is not supposed to work like this," Ovando's public defender Tamar
Toister said.

His lawyer also suggested at least one of the officers involved should be
prosecuted for shooting Ovando, which she considers attempted murder.

Immigration authorities said the LAPD asked that Ovando not be taken into
federal custody and deported.

Sharon Gavin, an INS spokeswoman, said the request was unusual, but added,
"There hasn't been a whole lot of history on something like this."

Residents hung a banner Thursday in support of officers. The sign stated
their love for "the men and women of Rampart Station."

Tomas Domingo, a 70-year-old Filipino-American who lives in the Rampart
area, said he was surprised by the reports of corruption. "It still doesn't
change my faith in policemen. Some are good and some are rotten."