Ethics Newsline®

LOS ANGELES
The Los Angeles Police Department last week suspended 12 officers and began investigating charges of internal systemic corruption after a former LAPD officer admitted that he and his partner stole eight pounds of cocaine from an evidence locker, and shot and framed an unarmed Honduran immigrant in 1996.

Rafael Perez, who made the confession last week as part of a plea bargain giving him immunity for shooting the Honduran, Javier Ovando, also began naming fellow officers who allegedly dealt drugs, shot unarmed suspects, and lied to their superiors to cover up their misdeeds, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The charges sent shock waves through the LAPD, prompting police chief Bernard Parks to announce a massive investigation. Federal authorities also launched a similar probe.

The scandal has rocked Rampart Station, the Los Angeles division that was Perez’s former beat, which has experienced dropping crime rates due to increased police presence, the Times noted. In the wake of the scandal, LAPD officials stepped down some of the tough enforcement measures and procedures used in anti-gang task forces in the division.

“It kind of shakes everything that you believe about in everything,” Ovando’s public defender Tamar Toister told the Associated Press. “The system is not supposed to work like this.”