Rampart Division - Definition and Overview

Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, usually known as CRASH, was a special unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, Rampart Division, devoted to reduction of gang violence. In 1988, they began to execute Operation Hammer, a massive series of mass arrests and sweeps of South Central Los Angeles.

Scandal

In August 1998, the same month that Chief Bernard Parks claimed that the Christopher Commission reforms were "essentially complete", officer Rafael Perez, a nine-year veteran of the department, was arrested for stealing six pounds of cocaine from an evidence room. In September 1999, in exchange for partial immunity from prosecution, he testified about a pattern of abuse and misconduct that threatened to overturn thousands of criminal convictions, accusing about seventy fellow CRASH officers.

Though three officers were convicted of obstruction of justice and other charges in October 2000, these convictions were overturned that December. Three more reached plea bargains the next year.

External links

• News story about Perez's arrest (http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/lapdarrest.html)
• Timeline of LAPD scandals (http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/42/cops-domanick2.php)
• PBS interviews people involved in the Perez scandal (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/scandal/crashculture.html)
• Report of the Board of Inquiry into the Rampart Area Corruption Incident (http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/2000/boi_pub.pdf) (PDF)