Welcome Entry by the FBI

Federal prosecutors and the FBI will bring their expertise, independence and considerable resources to bear on the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division scandal, which seems to grow worse by the day. The call for federal involvement was made by Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, which would indicate a readiness by the LAPD leader to cooperate.

These welcome developments should also bring a measure of assurance, though not comfort. The need for federal involvement became more pronounced as it became increasingly evident that the LAPD and the district attorney’s office have no talent for working together in this politically explosive controversy.

The news conference that announced these developments was, unfortunately, much like a schoolyard squabble. Who would have believed that so many high-ranking professionals could so utterly fail to handle a media event, turning it into an exchange of sniping? This isn’t garden-variety politics; this is a deadly serious matter.

It was left to U.S. Attorney Alejandro Mayorkas to hit the right chord. “The decision as to who will ultimately prosecute any cases that are made must be made collaboratively, with only the best interests of the cases in mind,” he said. Was anyone listening?

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti was kept in the dark about the news conference until the last minute. Chief Parks did little to dispel the notion that Garcetti is dragging his heels in prosecuting corrupt cops. Garcetti took at whack at Parks, pointing out that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in a 1990 corruption probe put three times as many investigators on the case as Parks has assigned to Rampart. Mayor Richard Riordan’s earlier statement that Garcetti expected “perfect cases” before he would prosecute hung in the air. Garcetti weighed in by saying the U.S. attorney’s office had no “magic wand” and might take years to prosecute cases.

All agencies involved should move promptly to coordinate efforts in this crisis, which reached a new level of concern with the allegation that corrupt Rampart officers and agents of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service openly defied city policy and cooperated in harassment and deportation of Rampart-area residents who had committed no crimes and may have been witnesses to police misconduct.

This strikes at the heart of any confidence that Latinos in Los Angeles, particularly immigrants, have in law enforcement and may particularly affect the reporting of crimes. These charges should be considered as scandalous as anything the Rampart investigation has turned up to date. The INS has announced that it will investigate, and the first question it should ask is how the agency could have been complicit in a practice that is specifically prohibited and which discriminated against Latinos.

This police targeting of the immigration status of residents is another reason why state, federal and local officials must forget their differences and work together to ferret out all of the wrongdoing in this scandal, no matter where the trail leads.