Blame Parks for Rampart Scandal

It’s amazing that, among Los Angeles’ hiding and ducking and bobbing and weaving and finger-pointing government officials, no one has caught blame for the LAPD Rampart scandal. The scandal has been on the front pages for seven months, and although Mayor Richard Riordan has popped up once to tell Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and LAPD Chief Bernard Parks to stop fighting like children, Riordan largely is “missing in nonaction” these days.

Except for L.A. City Councilman Joel Wachs, who is running for mayor, Councilman Mike Feuer, who is running for city attorney, and Councilwoman Laura Chick, who for many years chaired the council committee with LAPD oversight, virtually all members of the City Council are AWOL on the Rampart scandal.

Of course, there also is former City Council member, now-L.A. County supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky, who in his new county job has become a city police reformer. Yaroslavsky also was on the council’s LAPD oversight committee. Transcripts dating back to 1992 show all of them--Wachs, Feuer, Chick and Yaroslavsky--in private, as zealous and rabid supporters of the LAPD, former chiefs Daryl F. Gates and Willie L. Williams and LAPD miscreants who had been found guilty of serious civil rights violations by juries.

No longer bashful about stepping on the anti-LAPD bandwagon for some possible political gain, none of the bunch thinks anyone will remember his or her past pro-police positions. But the bottom line is that Parks, as the person who, admittedly, actually ran the LAPD for the entire time during which the recently revealed brutality and corruption took place, must be blamed for the Rampart mess.

Parks has had virtual control over the LAPD for more than 10 years. In paramilitary organizations like the LAPD, ranking officers must assume responsibility for the misdeeds of those in their direct chain of command.

The Police Commission--mayor-appointed civilians who nominally serve as a board of directors of the LAPD--all have full-time day jobs; they can set only broad policies for the LAPD and have no authority over the day-to-day operations of the department.

There have been two other chiefs of police since 1992, making it convenient for Parks to try to shunt responsibility for the Rampart mess by claiming much of the misconduct occurred before his watch as chief began in August 1997. Yet Parks’ recent sworn testimony proves him wrong--as does a check of the chronological employee numbers of the LAPD cops involved in Rampart, which shows that virtually all of them were hired after Parks began to control the LAPD.

On March 6, in a deposition I took for a lawsuit, Parks gave sworn testimony that he was appointed LAPD’s deputy chief in 1988, and that he held that position until 1991. In that position, Parks said he was assigned to “the Headquarters Bureau [where he] handled all of the centralized and detective and uniform functions [for] . . . about 85% of the department.” He held that post until 1991. From 1991-92, Parks testified, he “was in command of five areas: Hollenbeck, Northeast, Newton, Central and Rampart, and Central traffic.” From 1992 until 1994, Parks was “an assistant chief in charge of operations” appointed by then-Chief Williams. Parks testified about his assistant chief role: “I was responsible for [all of] the four geographic bureaus and the Headquarters Bureau function and basically ran 85% of the department.”

In 1994, Williams demoted Parks from assistant chief back to deputy chief. Ironically, the demotion put Parks in an even better position from which to root out LAPD corruption. Parks was transferred to head the Bureau of Special Operations, which “was the intelligence functions in the department and the internal affairs.” Parks headed internal affairs from 1994 until early 1997, the period of time during which virtually all of the Rampart scandal misconduct uncovered to date took place. In early 1997, Parks “went [back] to the Office of Operations” where he ran, “the same as before, 85% of the department, [all of] the four geographic bureaus and the headquarters function.”

Parks became chief in August 1997. But he, in fact, ran 85% of the LAPD, including the Rampart Division, from 1988 to 1994 and beginning again in 1997. Parks ran LAPD’s intelligence and internal affairs operations from 1994 to 1997. No LAPD manager could be more responsible for the Rampart mess than Parks.

Parks’ attempts to mislead the public and to distance himself from the scandal by claiming he was not there or is new to the scene are not borne out by his own sworn testimony or the historical facts of his own career. Parks ran the LAPD. Parks runs the LAPD. Parks is responsible for the LAPD.