4 Officers Back Tales of Parties After Shootings

So-called shooting parties at which officers drank beer and were awarded plaques for wounding or killing people were quasi-official events sometimes held at the Los Angeles Police Academy and attended by supervisors, according to four officers who worked in the Rampart Division’s anti-gang unit.

The officers--all of whom asked not to be identified--said similar plaques were awarded to anti-gang officers in the LAPD’s 77th Street Division, and to officers in other units. One former officer in the Rampart anti-gang CRASH unit said he attended two such parties where lieutenants, and in one case a captain, also were present.

“There was no mystery to any of this,” one former CRASH officer said in an interview with The Times. “They were not done in secret.”

Confirmation that ranking LAPD officers attended such functions would lend credence to allegations that supervisors were aware of--and, in fact, condoned--the questionable activities of the anti-gang CRASH unit at the center of the worst police corruption scandal in the city’s history.

The four officers, all of whom are implicated in the ongoing scandal, corroborated statements made to investigators by ex-officer Rafael Perez and disclosed in The Times this week. Perez is cooperating with authorities as part of a bargain to obtain a lesser sentence for stealing eight pounds of cocaine from LAPD evidence facilities.

Their statements bolster Perez’s credibility in at least one area. Doubts about his veracity were raised among some authorities after he failed a polygraph test on his allegations of crimes and misconduct in the LAPD.

Perez’s attorney and a nationally recognized polygraph expert hired by the defense maintain that the test was improperly administered and that the results are not valid. In fact, even law enforcement sources close to the investigation downplay the test’s results, saying they have independently corroborated many of the allegations about which Perez was purportedly lying, according to the polygraph.

Perez has told investigators there was a secret fraternity at Rampart CRASH, or Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, in which officers “in the loop” conspired to frame suspects and cover up unjustified shootings.

Perez said he and other rogue officers celebrated their misconduct. He told investigators he was given an award for shooting a 19-year-old gang member four years ago--a shooting he knew was unjustified. Perez said the prize consisted of a plaque bearing a playing card depicting a red heart with two bullets in it.

“It might seem kind of barbaric . . . they’re glorifying it in a way,” said one former CRASH officer. “But it’s good for morale. They talk about the shootings, how they’re heroes or whatever.”

One officer said through his attorney that he was shocked when he received an unsolicited award after a shooting in 1996.

“He did not ask for it. He did not want it,” the lawyer said.

Another officer, also speaking through his attorney, said the functions were a way of “blowing off steam . . . more of a gathering to talk about the events that happened.”

A couple of officers characterized the parties as gatherings to show camaraderie and said the awards were meant to signify an officer’s survival of a harrowing experience, not to celebrate the death or injury of the suspect.

One former Rampart CRASH officer said the boozy gatherings sometimes led to emotional exchanges among the usually macho cops. “It was a real from-the-heart kind of thing,” he said.

The officers, however, acknowledged that the parties were festive events where they drank beer and barbecued steaks.

When investigators searched Perez’s house in 1998, they found one of the shooting plaques, according to sources close to the probe.

“Uh, the plaque that you probably saw in my house . . . you know what that plaque is even about?” Perez asked the investigators who were apparently unaware of its significance, according to transcripts of his interrogation obtained by The Times. A sergeant “gave me that plaque for the Ovando shooting. That’s what that is. We give plaques out when you get involved in shootings. Uh, if the guy dies, the card is a black No. 2. If he stays alive, it’s a red No. 2.” (Perez has testified that Javier Ovando is the young unarmed man he and his then-partner, Nino Durden, shot and then framed.)

“Is it more prestigious to get one that is black than red?’ asked Det. Mark Thompson, according to the transcript.

“Yeah. I mean, you know, the black one signifies that a guy died,” Perez said.

Cmdr. David J. Kalish, the LAPD’s spokesman, responding to questions about the shooting parties and plaques, said he was unaware that such awards existed until he heard about Perez’s disclosure.

“I can understand how the officers might get together after a traumatic event, but I’ve never heard of any sort of celebratory gathering.”

The awards, he said, are “clearly inappropriate.”

A former Rampart CRASH officer said police officials who are expressing surprise over activities such as shooting parties and disclosures that some CRASH officers wore tattoos and patches of grinning skulls obviously had not worked in the crime-plagued Pico-Union district in recent years.

“That is a war out there that you’re in, and if a patch makes you feel a little more confident, then great,” said the officer, who sought to compare his unit to a military platoon. “Being a CRASH officer in Rampart is not like being a park ranger in Yosemite, you know.”