So what have you got for us? It's the question D.A.s always throw back at criminals looking to save their own hides. O.K., then, what bigger fish are you going to help us fry? In this case the perp, Rafael Perez, was a Los Angeles cop accused of stealing 6 lbs. of cocaine from downtown headquarters to sell on the street. If Perez wanted to plea bargain that, he'd better offer something pretty good.
He did. Perez admitted that he and his partner had shot an unarmed, handcuffed 19-year-old and planted a rifle on him to cover it up. And then in 2,000 pages of riveting testimony, Perez yanked back a curtain on a dark, dime-store-novel world in which cops routinely frame the innocent by planting ("throwing down") drugs and guns, smack around ("thump") citizens on the street for kicks and perjure themselves ("join the liar's club") to get convictions.
The upshot has been the biggest police scandal in Los Angeles history. At the center is the Rampart division--a police station in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods--and its special antigang unit. In the six months since Perez started talking, lurid revelations about law enforcement Rampart-style have emerged almost daily: allegations that cops raped a woman while on duty; accusations that a cop interrogating a handcuffed man beat him until he vomited blood; a fast-growing list of prisoners who were allegedly railroaded with fabricated evidence and police lies.
Forty criminal convictions have already been reversed, and hundreds more are targeted for immediate review. Public defenders predict upwards of 4,000 cases could be affected. So far, 20 officers have been relieved of their duties, two others fired and scores more placed under suspicion.
Last week the FBI joined the campaign to root out public corruption and civil rights abuses. The G-men assigned to the case have joined a crowd of other investigators--the civilian police commission, the Los Angeles district attorney's office, the police department's internal-affairs unit along with a special task force. Following in their wake: an army of private lawyers who have been flooded with calls from alleged Rampart victims. By the time all the civil rights lawsuits are resolved, Los Angeles could face hundreds of millions of dollars in liability. Mayor Richard Riordan has called for using the city's $300 million in tobacco-settlement money to resolve the litigation.
And the scandal shows every sign of spreading. Charges have been leveled that the Rampart division systematically targeted for deportation immigrants who were witnesses to police malfeasance. L.A.P.D. chief Bernard Parks told the city council that investigators will look beyond the allegations at Rampart. One source close to the investigation said it could spill over into at least one nearby division.