Chief Says Probe Is Likely to Snare More Officers : Police: Parks tells council that informant needs 40 more hours to fully testify but cites corroboration problems. He launches a formal board of inquiry.

Speaking in the bleakest terms yet about his department’s ongoing corruption scandal, Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks said Tuesday that he expects more officers to be implicated in a scandal that has led to the suspension of a dozen officers.

“This is just the beginning of the investigation,” a solemn Parks told City Council members. He added that the ex-officer at the center of the probe needs at least 40 more hours to testify fully concerning his knowledge of alleged crimes and misconduct by his former LAPD colleagues.

The chief cautioned, however, that investigators would face a challenge in attempting to corroborate allegations that former Officer Rafael A. Perez has made so far. One problem, Parks said, is that evidence has been destroyed in some instances.

“We may end up with a lot of information we can’t prove,” Parks said. “[But] there’s been a significant amount that’s been credible. . . . We take Rafael Perez at his word. We’ll go interview him as often as required.”

In addition to the criminal investigation, Parks said the department is launching a massive board of inquiry that will, among other things, examine the management structure at the troubled Rampart Division and throughout the LAPD. The board will review what may turn out to be hundreds of criminal cases that were prosecuted with the testimony of tainted officers.

Parks said that more than 50 officers will participate in the inquiry, which is expected to take at least six weeks.

“I don’t know if we can ever say we found it all,” Parks said. “We can only go as far as the investigation will take us.”

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg described the contents of the chief’s briefing as “horrifying.”

Meanwhile Tuesday, federal officials in Washington, D.C., said they plan to investigate the new corruption allegations at the LAPD to determine whether they fit a “pattern and practice” of abuse in the force.

“We’re not going to put blinders on to these allegations,” said a Justice Department official who asked not to be identified.

Justice Department officials have been monitoring the LAPD for the last several years to determine whether there is any pattern of use of excessive force. The purpose of such “pattern and practice” reviews, authorized by federal law in 1994, is to ensure proper management and oversight at police departments and, if needed, to bring federal lawsuits to pressure local authorities into cleaning up their operations.

The Justice Department official said the latest allegations, involving falsified police reports and framed suspects, go well beyond the issues that the federal government previously had been examining at the LAPD.

Allegations of Gang-Like Rituals

Among the most disturbing findings of the probe, sources say, is that anti-gang officers in the department’s CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) units may have emulated some of the rituals and habits of the gang members they were charged with policing.

Investigators have uncovered evidence that officers at one CRASH detail would “jump in”--or beat--newcomers to the unit as part of an initiation rite, as organized street gangs traditionally do.

Lawyers and Rampart-area residents say that officers in Rampart’s CRASH unit carried that mentality to the streets, intimidating and threatening those who challenged them.

“There has been information from my clients to the effect that the officers will approach people on the street and tell them: ‘Don’t [expletive] with me. If you [expletive] with me, I’m not going to hurt you, I’m going to hurt your buddy,’ ” said attorney Dennis Chang, who has three lawsuits pending against Rampart officers.

The suggestion that police may have adopted the swagger and physical intimidation of gang members casts a pall across CRASH and provides a possible explanation for some of the misconduct allegations that are occupying the Police Department in its wide-ranging internal investigation.

In part, department officials are searching for clues that some officers broke LAPD rules as they sought to display their own version of the bravado of the young men they encountered daily on the street.

For example, Chang said one CRASH officer--who has since been fired for an alleged beating of a suspect--cruised the streets of Rampart Division with handcuffs dangling from his patrol car’s rear-view mirror, a visual taunt.

“It was his trademark,” Chang said.

From gestures such as that to allegations of beating and shooting suspects, the alarming disclosures about the way that at least some anti-gang officers operated has sparked high-level concern that there may be a fundamental problem with CRASH.

“My understanding is they’re looking at everything, including systemic issues. I believe that certainly one area they’ll be looking at is the CRASH units and how they function, their selection and rotation,” said Police Commission President Gerald L. Chaleff.

In an interview with The Times, Perez, who pleaded guilty to stealing more than eight pounds of cocaine from department facilities, said CRASH officers routinely abused their authority and committed illegal acts attempting to impress their colleagues and supervisors. When Perez was asked if the unit operated like a gang, his lawyer quickly intervened.

That information, said attorney Winston Kevin McKesson, “is part of the investigation.”

As evidence of alleged mob-like activity in the Rampart station, Chang cited the case of Eduardo Hernandez, who filed suit against the LAPD after he allegedly had his head bloodied when it was slammed against a wall by a Rampart officer in February 1998. In a sworn statement, Hernandez said his troubles did not end there.

Hernandez said police retaliated against him and a friend because he filed a complaint about the alleged misconduct. A month after the alleged attack, he said, he and his friend were arrested for loitering and selling narcotics. But the charges were dropped, Hernandez said in his declaration.

“I believe this action on the part of the police was in retaliation for my complaint,” he said.

Hernandez said his friend was later beaten by police in his apartment, which he attributed to his friend’s “role as an eyewitness and supporter of my complaint against the police.”

In another case, attorney Jorge Gonzalez said he sued a Rampart CRASH officer for excessive force in 1990 and the city paid a $250,000 settlement. Gonzalez said that as officers left the scene of the beating, the white CRASH officer yelled out the window of his car, “Puro Rampart” (Totally Rampart), mimicking a gang pride slogan.

The information about officers “jumping in” newcomers to the group is not the first revelation of such behavior. In 1988, officers in the South Bureau CRASH unit were disciplined for a similar hazing incident that left one officer permanently injured.

The officer, who contended that he was attacked and beaten by CRASH officers in an LAPD locker room, received a $215,000 settlement from the city.

At the time, the initiation was described in police reports and by officers as similar to the practices of some gangs: Veteran officers would form a circle around a newcomer and begin striking him.

After the settlement, then-Chief Daryl F. Gates formally banned all such hazing activities in the department.

On Tuesday, the disclosures by Parks rattled City Council members, who said the alleged abuses probably will expose the city to extensive financial liability.

The city already has been threatened with a lawsuit related to the case of Javier Francisco Ovando, 22, whom Perez said he and his partner shot and then framed to make it look as if Ovando attacked them. As a result of Perez’s testimony, Ovando, who was paralyzed in the shooting, was released from state prison. Perez also has labeled as “dirty” another Rampart shooting that left one man dead and two others injured.

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Times staff writers Jim Newton and Eric Lichtblau contributed to this story.