Rising Tide of Suspicion

Here’s why the federal indictment Wednesday of former Los Angeles Police Officers Edward Patrick Ruiz and Jon Paul Taylor should ratchet up concern about misconduct within the department.

This case does not involve the Rampart Division scandal, in which investigators already have uncovered evidence of LAPD members planting evidence, fabricating documents, perjuring themselves in court, wrongly shooting suspects and more. Ruiz and Taylor were 77th Street Division cops and not part of any elite LAPD unit, as was the case in the Rampart Division.

Ruiz was a training officer and Taylor was under his wing when the two allegedly tried to frame an innocent man, Victor Tyson, five years ago by falsely claiming that Tyson had a concealed weapon and dropped it during a pursuit. If the allegations prove true, the question is how many other officers were similarly “groomed” by Ruiz.

Tyson, who had no criminal record, was not one of the gangbangers so easily framed by former LAPD Officer Rafael Perez, the principal source of information on alleged Rampart Division misconduct. Perez squealed to spare himself some prison time for cocaine theft from a police evidence room. Tyson’s case should give pause to anyone who still thinks that the LAPD was “only” trying to get bad eggs off the street by any means necessary.

The charge against Tyson was thrown out in court because of the suspicions of a deputy city attorney. Again, a prosecutor, in this case not in the district attorney’s office but the city attorney’s, doubted the honesty and credibility of involved officers. He rightly reported his suspicions to his supervisor, and those suspicions were supported by the police sergeant who approved the arrest. Even the judge in the case commended the then-deputy city attorney, Evan Freed, for his diligence in sniffing out a bad case and dropping the prosecution of Tyson. But in another stunning failure at both the prosecutorial and police management levels, the suspicion that there were cops committing crimes against the innocent was not followed up in any systematic way.

Officer Taylor resigned when the LAPD finally began to look into the case, but Ruiz, who had a higher responsibility as a training officer, received only a 22-day suspension for misconduct. That adds fuel to concerns about the LAPD too lightly policing its own. Under the federal civil rights indictments announced by U.S. Atty. Alejandro Mayorkas, Ruiz and Taylor could face more than 10 years in federal prison.

As the cloud of police corruption grows, it threatens to envelop City Atty. James K. Hahn, a candidate for mayor, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who’s facing a tough reelection campaign, and Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, who is midway in a renewable five-year term.

More important than the political fallout, however, is the gut punch waiting for taxpayers. This week the City Council settled a lawsuit stemming from a Rampart police misconduct case by agreeing to give $400,000 to two men allegedly harassed and beaten by LAPD officers. It was the first such payout. It won’t be the last.