Word: ramparts
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...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...
...Angeles Police Department has had a troubled history, from the pervasive corruption of the 1930s and '40s to the bitter feelings of the city's minority communities toward former chief Daryl Gates' department, culminating in the uproar over the 1991 beating of Rodney King. But the Rampart scandal has taken police misconduct to a new level of lawlessness and given currency to a new term: the gangster cop--not much different from the gang members the police are battling. As investigators work to get to the bottom of it all--and to separate the good cops from...
...Rampart police station, in the shadow of downtown Los Angeles, is set in the middle of one of the city's toughest neighborhoods. It's a densely populated mix of Latino immigrants, Korean shopkeepers, down-on-their-luck drug addicts and gangs--lots of gangs. The 8-sq.-mi. area has 30 different youth gangs, with thousands of members among them, squaring off for turf...
...their domain, Rampart's CRASH officers ruled. "The most powerful public official in the city of Los Angeles is not the mayor," says Robert Hansohn, the recently installed captain brought in to clean up the Rampart division. "It's the officer we put out there on the street in a black-and-white car with guns, badges, shotguns and assault weapons." In the '90s the CRASH unit certainly lived up to its name, with a confrontational style of policing that aggressively took back the streets. It seemed to be getting results. In the 1960s the area had 170 murders...
There have long been complaints that Rampart cops were playing dirty. "It's been happening for years," says Alex Sanchez, a former gang member arrested by Rampart and facing deportation. "We've seen cops take drugs and let the youths go. We've seen them plant drugs on others. Youths have been saying, 'That wasn't mine. He planted it on me!' But who would believe them?" The fact was, as long as the complaints were coming from suspected gang members--some of whom had criminal records--no one much seemed to care. "If you peeled the layers back...