MIM NOTES No. 197,		November 1, 1999

New evidence of fraud, corruption, and just plain dirty tricks at 
LAPD

A widely publicized investigation into corruption in the Los 
Angeles Police Department (LAPD) calls the validity of hundreds -- 
maybe thousands -- of arrests into question -- even by Amerikkan 
standards. It also exposes the limits of police reform.

Three years ago, two Los Angeles police officers burst into Javier 
Franciso Ovando's apartment, handcuffed, and shot him three times 
in the chest.(1) One of the officers then "grabbed [Ovando] by the 
front of the shirt , held him upright and shot him point-blank in 
the head."(2) Ovando was 19 years old at the time of the attack 
and he had no criminal record. The attack against Ovando confined 
him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, yet he was convicted 
of assaulting the officers and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Now one of the officers involved in the attack says that he and 
his partner planted a .22 caliber rifle with a banana clip on 
Ovando and framed him for the assault.(2) Former officer Rafael 
Perez, convicted of stealing eight pounds of cocaine from a police 
property room, is telling details about the Ovando shooting and 
the everyday abuses and corruption he witnessed at the LAPD's 
Rampart Division as part of a deal to shorten his sentence. He 
says that LAPD corruption is "a cancer that has gone too long 
without being treated."(3) The Rampart Division is in a largely 
Central American and Mexican neighborhood.

Perez' testimony launched what mainstream media calls "the biggest 
corruption scandal in 60 years." MIM gives the bourgeois news 
Pollyanna kudos for being able to say that with a straight face 
considering that the LAPD has been synonymous with creeping 
fascism over the last 60 years. The LAPD has left scores of 
Ovandos and Rodney Kings in its wake, most recently a homeless 
womyn gunned down by cops for being in the wrong place at the 
wrong time. Of course, this is the first time in a while that the 
LAPD felt it had to cover its ass and undertake something 
resembling an investigation. Back in the 1970s and 1980s the LAPD 
virulently defended its policies to harass and imprison Latino and 
Black youth by any means necessary.(4)

The FBI and the LAPD itself are investigating charges against 
officers. The charges range from "illegal shootings and drug 
dealing [by cops] to excessive force and so-called code of silence 
violations"(2) As of 20 September, 12 officers from one LAPD unit 
had been fired as a result of the investigation. Perez has already 
testified that cops planted weapons on victims of another police 
shooting that left one man dead.(2)



"Testilying"

Perez also charges that cops regularly planted drugs on suspects 
and lied in court -- a practice LAPD officers called "testilying." 
In the last decade, 14 cops have been convicted of falsifying 
testimony, though we know it is more widespread.(2) The LAPD sent 
out 200 letters to defense attorneys, telling them that evidence 
in cases Perez was involved in may have been tainted. That's over 
200 cases tainted by Perez alone! The LA County district attorney 
refuses to release numbers on how many cases were tainted by all 
of the officers under investigation. This drives home a point MIM 
makes all the time -- how can Amerikan courts prove anybody guilty 
of a crime beyond reasonable doubt when the cops lie and the 
courts believe them?

Perez' testimony is particularly embarrassing to the LAPD because 
his made-up account of the Ovando shooting was "some of the most 
persuasive testimony used by prosecutors to obtain a sweeping 
anti-gang injunction."(5) Because this testimony has been revealed 
as bogus, prosecutors suspended enforcement of the injunction.(6) 
The injunction made it illegal for alleged gang members to gather 
in public. That is, the injunction robbed alleged gang members of 
rights supposedly guaranteed to them by the U.$. Constitution, 
such as the right to assembly. Once again, we see that the 
justifications used by cops and courts to crack down on oppressed 
nation youth are just hysteria.



Fascist gestapo pigs

According to one police officer, "[Cops] figure these guys are 
gang members, they're here illegal. If [the alleged gang members] 
didn't do something, they'd plant something on them.

"It keeps 'dummy' off the street, keeps [arrest] numbers up, and 
everyone's happy. You would hear a spattering of that. It's very 
hush hush."(5)

Far from being the ideas of a few "bad apples," these attitudes 
flow from the cops' social role among oppressed nations in the 
U.$.: To protect the (principally white) capitalists' property and 
keep a lid on unrest and protest. Those individual police officers 
who truly wish to "Serve and Protect" must battle against the 
fascist ideology of other officers while being compelled by 
superiors to uphold objectively fascist policies, such as "anti-
gang" injunctions or "gang suppression" units like the CRASH 
program.

In the polite language of the LA Times, the "elite, hard-charging" 
CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) squad "had a 
reputation for heavy handed tactics."(5) The CRASH unit is a main 
focus of the current investigations. CRASH officers regularly 
rounded up local youth, lined them up with their hands behind 
their heads and interrogated them. Even a local business owner 
with some pro-cop sympathies said that "there were many abuses by 
police. They treated people like animals."(5)

The cops and courts adversarial attitudes towards the masses made 
it impossible for the masses to seek redress or justice "through 
the system." An 18th Street gang member witnessed the Ovando 
shooting but did testify against the officers. In the words of a 
friend of Ovando, "Who would believe 18th street gang members?"(2)

As the Black Panther Party put it, "The police occupy our 
neighborhoods like a foreign army occupies territory."



"Community control": Whose "community"? To what ends?

Wary of another LA rebellion, the LAPD is airing an unusual amount 
of its dirty laundry. Even Jeff Eglash, the city-government-
appointed inspector general, complains that police chief Bernard 
Parks "unilaterally sought to put restrictions on the inspector 
general."(3) Eglash and Parks are currently quibbling over how 
much the inspector general can actually investigate. Other 
bourgeois critics have said that Parks "believes in [vaguely 
defined-MIM] civilian oversight in theory but not in practice."(3)

In the middle of this debate, Parks blurted out a damning 
revelation: "It makes no difference who looks at material if it's 
fraudulent on its face and all the witnesses are part of the 
fraud. These people [the cops] are the only witnesses." While 
Parks said this in order to wash his hands and squelch all 
criticism of the LAPD, it does show that all attempts to "police 
the police" under bourgeois rule will have limited success. One of 
the main lessons of the Marxist theory of the state is that the 
ruling class -- in Amerika the imperialist bourgeoisie -- is not 
bound by the legal formalisms it creates for itself. When push 
comes to shove, and "police reform" threatens the ability of the 
police to protect bourgeois rule, then the police will resort to 
extra-legal measures. For example, to paraphrase Parks, they will 
go underground.

In The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, Lenin 
discussed the ability of bourgeois remnants to carry out dirty 
tricks:  "For a long time after the revolution the exploiters 
inevitably continue to enjoy a number of great practical 
advantages; they still have money... they still have various 
connections, habits of organization and management, knowledge of 
all of the "secrets" (customs, methods, means and possibilities) 
of management, superior education... incomparably greater 
experience in the art of war (this is very important), and so on, 
and so forth." If this is the situation after the revolution, how 
much more of an advantage will the bourgeoisie have when they have 
state power!

This is why real Marxists talk about smashing the bourgeois state, 
and (unlike social-democrats) have no illusions about the 
proletariat being able to use bourgeois institutions to 
proletarian ends. The Black Panther Party, for example, did not 
"police the police" by calling for City Council oversight -- they 
went out and monitored police action themselves and made it clear 
that abuses would not be tolerated. They did not start "community 
policing" by calling for the hiring of more Black police officers 
-- they started policing the community themselves, independently 
of bourgeois institutions. Revolutionaries today can learn much 
from their example.

Notes:
1. The Los Angeles Times, 16 September 1999.
2. The Los Angeles Times, 17 September 1999.
3. The Los Angeles Times, 20 September 1999.
4. See "The Hammer and the Rock" in: Mike Davis, City of Quartz, 
Vintage Books: New York, 1992, pp.265-322.
5. The Los Angeles Times, 19 September 1999.
6. The Los Angeles Times, 21 September 1999.