Ex-Officer Calls Corruption a Chronic ‘Cancer’

Calling corruption at the Los Angeles Police Department “a cancer . . . that has gone on a long time without being treated,” the jailed ex-officer who is the central figure in an ongoing probe of misconduct said Monday that he and other officers routinely abused their power to win praise from their superiors.

Rafael A. Perez told The Times in an interview that ambitious officers join the LAPD’s anti-gang and other specialized units “trying to do the right thing, thinking they’re doing the right thing, trying to impress supervisors . . . and stopping at nothing to do that.”

As he fulfilled his lifelong dream of being a narcotics officer, Perez, 32, said he knew “no limit.”

The former Rampart Division officer is cooperating with investigators as part of a plea bargain agreement in which he is expected to receive a five-year prison sentence for stealing about eight pounds of cocaine from LAPD facilities. He already has implicated himself and his former partner in a shooting that left an unarmed man confined to a wheelchair and wrongfully imprisoned, and has described at least one other Rampart shooting in which a man was killed as “dirty.”

As a result of the corruption probe, 12 officers who work or have worked at the Rampart station have been relieved of duty. Three others, including Perez, have been forced off the job. Investigators are looking into allegations ranging from illegal shootings and drug dealing to excessive use of force and “code of silence” offenses. On Monday, police sources confirmed that a captain formerly assigned to the Rampart station was among those facing punishment in connection with the scandal.

In his first public statements since his arrest last year, Perez declined to answer questions about the growing scandal on the advice of his attorney, Winston Kevin McKesson, who monitored the telephone interview with reporters at his Beverly Hills office. Perez spoke freely, however, about the shame and remorse he says he feels for his crimes and misconduct at the LAPD.

His greatest regret, he said, had to do with Javier Francisco Ovando, the unarmed man he says he and his partner shot, then framed so he would go to prison for attacking police. Because of Perez’s cooperation, Ovando, 22, was released from prison after serving 2 1/2 years of a 23-year sentence.

Perez said memories of his mistreatment of Ovando even invade his dreams.

“I go to sleep with it and wake up with it,” the former officer said, speaking on a pay phone from county jail, the metal clank of cells closing and the chatter of inmates and TV audible in the background.

“It’s something I have been living with for almost three years and I wanted to find some closure for me and, in a sense, a beginning for Mr. Ovando,” said Perez, who accepted the plea agreement against his attorney’s advice. As part of the deal, Perez received immunity for his involvement in the Ovando shooting.

“Even if we had gone to trial and won, I don’t know that I could have continued to live my life with all these things that are bottled up in me,” said Perez, whose soft-spoken, polite answers during the 30-minute interview belied his reputation as a hard-charging street cop. “This is something that I’m doing for me and for my God, and something that I feel I need to do to make me whole.”

Perez said he wanted to be a cop from the time he was a boy watching “Adam 12” and “CHIPS” on TV. As a teenager, witnessing drug deals taking place all around him on the streets of Philadelphia, he vowed to fight that problem in particular.

“Each corner had about three people standing on it, and every one of them would stop cars and sell drugs,” Perez said. “I remember telling the guy standing next to me, ‘One day I’m gonna be an undercover officer and I’m going to bust all of you.’ ”

At first, after a four-year stint in the Marines, he said he loved his job with the LAPD. He was particularly happy to have been selected to work CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums), which he considered an elite unit of officers charged with cracking down on gangs and drugs. There was a “point in my career that I would have been proud to have died in the line of duty,” said Perez, reflecting on nine years of service that began with promise but have ended in disgrace. “At least I would have had some pride.”

Perez pleaded guilty earlier this month to eight felony counts stemming from the theft of eight pounds of cocaine from LAPD facilities over a three-month period in early 1998.

According to police, Perez lived life “in the fast lane,” spending money on vacations, cars and women, including a drug dealer girlfriend.

That lifestyle came to end in August 1998 after LAPD investigators discovered the cocaine missing and traced it to Perez. Despite being confined to a jail cell like the criminals he used to arrest, Perez said his own arrest may have saved his life.

“I feel this is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me,” Perez said. “I definitely believe I was on a road to destruction. I was on a road to a place that no one should be. This experience has opened my eyes, opened my heart to a lot of things.”

Six days after his arrest, Perez was sitting in the county jail when another inmate came up to him and asked him what it felt like to be a cop behind bars. The inmate said he wished all police officers would have to spend 30 days in jail before they work the streets so they know how their job affects the people they arrest.

“When he told me that, it hit me to the bone,” Perez said. “It made me think: Absolutely right. If an officer was forced to spend 30 days just to get a feel of the isolation and what jail is like, I’d have to tend to believe that things would be a little bit different.”

The extent of the wrongdoing alleged by Perez took detectives by surprise, and has raised new questions about the quality of the LAPD’s internal review of officer-involved shootings. It also has renewed concerns that police officers remain willing to cover up the misconduct of other officers, despite reforms in the wake of the 1991 beating of Rodney G. King aimed at changing such attitudes.

“I’m not proud; I’m not boastful in any way of the things that I’ve allowed myself to get involved in with this CRASH unit. I will live the rest of my life with a great deal of shame and regret and even resentment. . . . I say resentment because I allowed myself to get involved and intertwined in a group that was not doing the right thing.”

Most of the department, he noted, “is doing the right thing.”

Perez was friends with another disgraced former LAPD officer, David A. Mack, who was sentenced earlier this month to 14 years in prison for robbing a bank of $722,000. Perez and another LAPD officer partied with Mack in Las Vegas two days after the bank heist.

Though investigators are searching for clues that Mack and Perez may have been involved in crimes together, they have found no such evidence. Perez said Monday he was stunned by news that Mack had robbed a bank, and was unaware of his involvement in any other crimes.

Within the county jail system, sheriff’s officials have had to put Perez in protective custody. When he was transported by bus with other inmates to court, he was cursed at, called “rat,” threatened and spat on, sources said.

“My sincere hope is that for all the bad, and all the wrong that I’ve been involved in, that I can create some right and some good,” Perez said.