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Rampart Reconsidered Executive Summary R A M P A R T R e c o n s i d e r e d The Searc h for Real Refo rm Seven Years Later Execut ive Summa r y Blue Ribbon Panel Chair Additional Staff Rampart Review Constance L. Rice Kenneth Berland Jenna Cobb Panel Panel Members John Mathews Jan L. Handzlik Pilar Mendoza Laurie L. Levenson Margaret Middleton Stephen A. Mansfield Natasha Saggar Carol A. Sobel Rishi Sahgal Edgar Hugh Twine Regina Tuohy Panel Members Emeriti Erwin Chemerinsky Andrea Ordin Maurice Suh Executive Director Kathleen Salvaty Lead Investigator Brent A. Braun Additional Investigators Eusebio Benavidez Morris D. Hayes Jack Keller Pete McGuire Michael Wolf Special Hon. James K. Hahn Linder & Associates Merrick Bobb Alan J. Skobin Thanks Rick J. Caruso Michael J. Strumwasser *** Los Angeles Police Gerald Chaleff Richard Tefank Akin Gump Strauss Foundation Warren M. Christopher Karen Wagener Hauer & Feld LLP Los Angeles City Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Samuel Walker Personnel Department Hon. Steve Cooley Hon. Jack Weiss Burke, Williams David S. Cunningham III Hon. Debra W. Yang & Sorenson, LLP Technical Threat Hon. Rockard J. Delgadillo Roberta Yang Donna Denning Gregory A. Yates Gibson, Dunn Analysis Group, Inc. Richard E. Drooyan & Crutcher LLP *** Paul Enox All of the dedicated Howrey LLP Shelley Freeman LAPD officers and LAPD Office of the James J. Fyfe employees who gave Lindahl, Schnabel, Inspector General Bonifacio Bonny Garcia their time and insight Kardassakis & Beck LLP Michael J. Gennaco to this Panel in Latin American Law Gigi Gordon order to improve the Nossaman Guthner Enforcement Association Michael P. Judge department. Knox Elliott LLP Law Enforcement E. Richard Larson Association of Asian Pacifics Barrett S. Litt O’Melveny & Meyers LLP John Mack Orrick, Herrington Los Angeles Police Cheryl White Mason & Sutcliffe LLP Protective League Winston K. McKesson Hon. Cindy Miscikowski Paul, Hastings, Janofsky Oscar Joel Bryant Rose M. Ochi Foundation & Walker LLP Anthony Pacheco R. Samuel Paz *** Sidley Austin LLP Ramon L. Quintana Chief William J. Bratton Gilbert T. Ray Skadden, Arps, Slate, Hon. Ed P. Reyes Meagher & Flom LLP *** Lael Rubin Corina Alarcon Anthony Asadullah Samad The James Irvine Hon. Lee Baca Alex Sanchez Foundation Andre Birotte, Jr. Silvia Saucedo *** This report is dedicated in memoriam to Edgar Hugh Twine Executive Introduction Summary In 1999, allegations by a convicted former Los Angeles Police foremost experts on LAPD: its retired and current officers, Department Rampart C.R.A.S.H1 officer of widespread police abuse command staff, union leaders and civilians. The verdict from scores and corruption exploded into Los Angeles headlines. The charges of officers is in: most post-scandal reforms currently being imple- that he and dozens of fellow officers routinely framed suspects, mented are useful, but they will be insufficient to lock in current planted evidence, fabricated probable cause, lied in court and physi- successes, prevent another CRASH crisis, resolve LAPD’s long- cally abused suspects swept the City and the department into one of standing problems or begin to close the public-police trust gap in the most debilitating police corruption crises in Los Angeles history. high crime areas. A significant number of LAPD’s most knowledge- able commanders, officers and leaders of the rank and file inter- The scandal was not that a few officers had stolen drugs and framed viewed by this Panel concur with outside critics that these goals will suspects—perennial risks that all police departments face. It was require much deeper changes within LAPD — and a complete over- the scale of the abuses, if even by a few, haul of the City’s deficient “thin blue the impunity with which abusers could [T]he problems at the [LAPD]’s Rampart Division are line” public safety model. act, and the cover afforded their crimes “cultural in nature, the result of an institutional mind-set by the department’s culture and the This Panel agrees with their assess- City’s chronic inability to exert control first conceived...to survive repeated attacks from outside ment. In 2006, the department is on over LAPD. The CRASH crisis torpe- the department. Unless this police culture is overthrown, the right road. It has the right leader- doed the integrity of the entire Los future Rampart scandals are inevitable. ship and they are making needed Angeles criminal justice system and ” changes under their own aegis and the placed LAPD under the jurisdiction of David D. Dotson, former LAPD Assistant Chief, federal Consent Decree. But these a federal court and Consent Decree.2 “LAPD Corruption:A Culture of War”Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2000 improvements will not revise the mindset, customs and codes that This report is a post-CRASH check-up. It answers the question posed reverse most reforms and seed CRASH-like or Rodney King-like by the Los Angeles Police Commission and Chief of Police William J. crises. Bratton to this Blue Ribbon Rampart Review Panel in 2003: Did the Los Angeles Police Department and the City of Los Angeles fix the The bottom line? Seven years after the scandal, the CAT scan underlying causes of the most consequential police corruption scandal shows great progress; but the colonoscopy shows polyps. in Los Angeles history; and if not, what actions are needed to do so?3 The road to full recovery lies ahead. But the journey is not LAPD’s The answer is simple in some respects and complex in others. To alone. It requires transformative change from institutions across a large degree, this report reflects the blunt introspection of the the board—from City Hall to the halls of criminal justice; from the 12.89 03.03.91 07.10.91 Timeline Color Key Relating to LAPD Rafael Perez appointed to LAPD. King Beating. LAPD officers are Christopher Commission publishes Relating to other LA agencies videotaped beating motorist its report in the wake of the Rodney High Profile Incidents Rodney King with their batons King beating, recommending broad Prior public reports on LAPD after King led them on a car chase. reforms for LAPD, including creation Relating to Consent Decree of the Office of Inspector General. Relating to this Blue Ribbon Panel 2 Rampart Reconsidered Executive Summary school board to the parole board; from the body politic and from the themselves and the department in hopes that this report will lead to families whose gun-toting relatives terrorize residents of LA’s the deeper changes they believe are needed. Indeed, this report violence racked neighborhoods. This report is not just calling for affirms the department’s considerable advances and confirms the LAPD to finish fixing itself, but also for the City to confront the conclusions of key LAPD leaders that current recovery and reform unsettling truth that it gets the policing it asks for and funds. Until efforts are good, but insufficient to the City ends the chronic anorexia of “thin blue line” public lock in recent successes, prevent We’re making the same safety—a safety-on-the-cheap model that delivers public safety in another CRASH crisis, or resolve mistakes“ and haven’t made the neighborhoods on the right side of that line and containment- LAPD’s other longstanding prob- suppression in neighborhoods that are not—there will be limits to lems that block closing the public- deeper fixes really needed what police reform can achieve. And if the City continues its failure police trust gap in high crime to head off another Rampart or to heed the 40-year-old mandate of the McCone Commission to end areas. Without the drive of LAPD Rodney King.We’ve got one last leaders from command, rank and the devastating “spiral of failure” that seeds police-public eruptions chance to get it right... and not and corruption, then it can expect more of both.4 file, retired officers and police unions, this opportunity to fortify much time to do it. The Context for this Report the reform agenda would not exist. ” LAPD Detective, more than 25 years on force If this department ever finds its This report is the latest in a long line of tomes about this City’s way to fighting crime while winning trust—without bias, brutality century-old struggle with its police department and public safety. or corruption—it will be because these officers and LAPD’s current As an analysis of a crisis, it neces- leadership cared more about digging deeper to finally “get it right” sarily focuses on failures—and than the political costs of doing so. Since joining [LAPD]... I have not just in LAPD but in several “been focused on one job: that of other criminal justice institutions Seven Years Later: rebuilding... trust between LAPD as well. It should not, however, be misread as a condemnation at the Crossroads and the communities it is sworn of department leaders, officers, to protect and serve, while at the command staff, union leaders Seven years after the CRASH crisis, the City of Angels and its same time rebuilding trust between or civilians. On the contrary— police department are at a crossroads. The direction chosen will officers and their department. Chief Bratton insisted on this determine whether the Los Angeles criminal justice system fully ” review and scores of LAPD staff recovers from the CRASH crisis or simply moves beyond it until Chief William J. Bratton offered unflinching criticism of the next scandal. As the Chief of Police puts it: 04.29.92 06.92 06.30.92 04.95 08.95 Riots erupt in Los Angeles hours Voters approve ammendment to LA New LAPD Chief. Chief Daryl F. Office of Inspector General created. Rafael Perez joins Rampart CRASH. after a jury acquits four white LAPD City Charter limiting Chief of Police Gates retires, and Willie L.
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