Police Probe Forces Suspension of Rampart Anti-Gang Injunctions

Prosecutors said Monday that they were immediately suspending enforcement of two sweeping anti-gang injunctions affecting more than 100 members of the notorious 18th Street gang as the fallout from the LAPD corruption scandal spread.

The court orders, touted by Mayor Richard Riordan, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and City Atty. James K. Hahn as key tools in combating street violence, were based in part on sworn declarations from at least eight officers now swept up in the expanding probe, according to records and interviews.

The investigation, centered in large part on LAPD’s Rampart Division anti-gang squad known as Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums or CRASH, is examining charges of illegal shootings, beatings, shakedowns of drug dealers and evidence planting.

One former unit officer, Rafael Perez, has cast doubt on the legality of at least two shooting incidents recounted by police to help win the 1997 and 1998 injunctions, which severely limit gang members’ activities, records show. Perez has been cooperating with investigators to gain leniency for stealing cocaine from an LAPD evidence room.

In one case, a chilling portrayal of an assault-weapon-wielding gang member bursting into a Pico Union apartment and threatening Perez and his partner was fabricated, Perez told investigators. He also has described a 1996 police shooting involving 18th Street gang members and cited in the injunction case as dirty.

In addition, former Rampart CRASH Officer Brian Hewitt, since fired in connection with an alleged beating of an ex-gang member, filed a key injunction declaration describing the gang’s varied criminal activities in the area. Hewitt’s attorney has said that the allegations against his client are not well-founded.

Marty Vranicar, a supervising deputy city attorney in the anti-gang section, said that given information “that leaves us to believe some of the [officers’] declarations . . . may not have been truthful,” all enforcement of the Pico Union area injunctions is being suspended.

And today Vranicar and county prosecutors are expected to go before the Superior Court judge overseeing one of the injunctions to request a delay in further proceedings.

Garcetti told reporters Monday that continued use of the injunctions is compromised because Perez provided key declarations about 18th Street, but now is laying out a tale of alleged abuses and illegalities by police.

“We can’t get around the fact,” Garcetti said, “that Perez was an important [injunction] witness.”

Noting that the scope of the corruption probe still appears to be expanding, Vranicar said, “We don’t know when this is going to be cleared up.”

Vranicar and Garcetti noted that prosecutors assembled declarations from dozens of officers--most of whom have not been implicated in wrongdoing.

Still, records show that members of the Rampart unit figured prominently in forming the foundation of the injunction case.

Judges in injunction cases have tended to rely heavily on police accounts of gang activity, submitted under penalty of perjury. Gang members are often not represented by legal counsel. When they do put up a legal fight, their credibility is undercut by criminal records.

However, the current corruption probe could alter that dynamic and boost arguments by attorneys for gang members, who have accused police of inciting gang violence and violating their rights.

For example, accusations of misconduct and perjury against Rampart Division officers were unsuccessfully raised last year by attorneys representing several reputed 18th Street members.

In a June 1998 declaration, Eduardo Hernandez said he was beaten by Rampart Division officers who smashed his head several times against a concrete wall.

“Take it like a man,” Hernandez quoted one officer as telling him.

Arguing that the injunction should be denied, attorney Pamela L. Schleher contended in court documents that the prosecutor’s “reliance [on] officers’ declarations, which are tainted . . . renders plaintiff’s hands unclean.”

It is unclear what effect suspension of the injunctions will have on controlling gang crime in the Rampart area, west of downtown.

Crime has been falling in the area for a variety of reasons. And only a small number of arrests have been made for violations of the injunctions, which ban gang members from gathering in public.

Some recent studies have attacked injunctions as ineffective and unconstitutional.

But the current controversy is not dissuading his office, Vranicar said. Several injunctions outside of the Rampart area continue to be enforced, he said, and more are in the works.