Top Priority: Free the Innocent

The problems of police corruption that have surfaced at the Rampart Division are not likely to be confined to that police station.

Nor is the tainting and manufacturing of evidence to frame the innocent or having cops on the take new in Los Angeles. Growing up in Los Angeles, I had heard the stories about Mayor Frank Shaw and Chief James Edgar Davis in the 1920s and 1930s, who reportedly used the vice squad as a special place for graft, payoffs and cops on the take.

Yet today’s situation--the procession of innocent people being released from prison, the criminal indictments that are being dismissed by the courts at the request of the district attorney, the suspected involvement of so many police officers and the dereliction of supervisors at the police stations--is an embarrassment and scandal that goes to the very heart of the criminal justice system.

Despite the good intentions of Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and the good faith efforts of the members of the Police Commission and its inspector general, these civic leaders cannot be relied on to determine the full parameters of this scandal. Thus, they are in no position to restore the public’s confidence in the LAPD. This can only be accomplished from an outside investigative source.

Mayor Richard Riordan’s probe of the department is inadequate and, rather than being a step toward justice, it is a transparent and political attempt to engage in damage control. Six FBI officers cannot do the kind of thorough civil rights investigation that is dictated by these circumstances.

As Councilman Joel Wachs said recently: “It is simply impossible to fully and objectively investigate yourself.” We need Warren Christopher, or a Warren Christopher--a person with his national recognition and unquestioned integrity and no vested interest in the outcome--to head another commission, which would need to be fully funded and properly staffed.

We also need the U.S. Justice Department, which is independent of city influence, to investigate. Most of all, we need a clear understanding by Riordan, the police chief, the Police Commission and the City Council that this is a catastrophe of monumental proportions that will continue into the indefinite future until they invite such an outside probe.

City officials must be ahead of this scandal instead of chasing behind it. If they do not gain control, they risk the judgment of history. The belief that they can restore public confidence by using existing investigative units within the city structure and half a dozen FBI agents is naive and ill-conceived.

The first priority must be to free the innocent from prison. Just based on what has been revealed so far, there are undoubtedly hundreds of innocent people in state prison who must be released and allowed to reclaim what is left of their lives.

The stories of Ruben “Hurricane” Carter or Geronimo Pratt are not isolated. As we have now learned, they are far more common than we were led to believe. The most evil thing in the world has to be the conviction of the innocent based upon falsified and perjured testimony of bad cops.