Is Anyone Wearing White Hats?

In the weeks after Rodney King was baton-beaten in 1991 by L.A. law, a question kept being asked all over the world by people who watched the constant replay:

“Are all of the Los Angeles police like that?”

Of course not, you assured anyone who asked. Los Angeles has one of the least corrupt police forces you will ever find. Sure, there are bad apples, you said, but otherwise. . . .

King was a bad dude who led the cops on a dangerous chase, you said. The cops went way too far and deserved to pay for their own crimes, but most of L.A.’s peace officers aren’t like that, you said.

In the weeks after O.J. Simpson’s lawyers suggested the possibility that key evidence in his murder case could have been planted, a question kept being asked all over the world by people who watched it unfold:

“Would the L.A. police do something like that?”

Of course not, you assured anyone who asked. Los Angeles detectives don’t go around planting clothing or gloves or guns. Sure, there are bad attitudes, you said, but otherwise. . . .

Simpson was guilty, you said. Motive, means and opportunity, you said. A detective did turn out to be a lying racist, but none of L.A.’s authorities would frame a suspect, you said.

In the weeks after the fictional film “L.A. Confidential” came out, a question kept being asked by people all over the world who watched the movie’s crooked cops lie, cheat, steal and kill:

“Were the L.A. police ever really like that?”

Of course not, you assured anyone who asked. Los Angeles cops wear their badges with honor. Sure, the film was loosely based on actual incidents from the early ‘50s, you said, but otherwise. . . .

Things like that don’t happen here.

You said.

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With each passing day, the investigation into possible wrongdoing and venality in the LAPD sends new chills up a citizen’s spine.

Many officers have already been fired or relieved of duty. Harrowing details of alleged misconduct--shootings and cover-ups included--are being unearthed.

Who is digging them up?

For one, a former LAPD officer has been shooting his mouth off about what he supposedly knows. This man is not doing so out of the goodness of his heart or out of a Serpico-like commitment to the truth. He is copping a plea to get a sentence reduced after stealing 8 pounds of cocaine.

We now have this ex-cop apparently claiming that he shot a handcuffed 19-year-old suspect point-blank in the head, after which his partner planted a weapon on the body.

The victim survived-- wheelchair bound--and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. He has been sitting in a Salinas Valley cell for nearly three years.

Thursday, he was set free.

A second 1996 case is being exhumed, like a box of buried bones. Late on a summer night, nine cops came to an apartment building where reputed L.A. gang members were gathered. Ten rounds of ammo were reportedly fired by the police. No rounds were reportedly fired by the men who got shot.

One suspect died. Another took a shotgun blast to the chest, police say--although the man says he was actually shot in the back. The cops’ actions were deemed justifiable.

Investigators now need to know whether weapons were planted on any of the suspects. Four of the nine officers have been fired or relieved.

Every honest, earnest cop in town is getting contaminated in the process. They need you to believe that you can turn to them, trust them, talk back without getting a gun barrel stuffed in your mouth.

Only now every bad actor in stir can claim to be an innocent dupe in a frame, and find someone who’ll believe it. Activists are already going around saying that it’s the cops, not the crooks, who should be forced to take polygraph tests.

One spokesman for a Latino rights group said of the LAPD scandal: “We are outraged, but we are not surprised.”

We had better act surprised, however. Because if we say offhandedly that we presume this kind of police activity to be commonplace, we might as well acknowledge that there are no good guys or bad guys on our streets . . . just guys.

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In the weeks after Joe Morgan, a distinguished Hall of Fame baseball player, was arrested in 1988 in an airport, accused without proof of being a drug dealer, thrown to the floor and cuffed, a question kept being asked by anyone who knew Morgan to be a person of impeccable background and character:

“Why would the L.A. police do something like that?”

Morgan recounted recently in an interview how much worse it could have been had a total stranger not been there to witness what happened and vouch for him.

Later, these same police lied and tried to change evidence, Morgan insists to this day.

“I told my wife, ‘I don’t know whether O.J. did it or not,’ ” he recalls, alluding to the Simpson trial, “‘but I do know that these guys will lie and do anything to get a conviction.’ ”

Of course they wouldn’t, you want to say. You want so badly to be able to say it, and to mean it.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. E-mail:

mike.downey@latimes.com