Scandal Stirs a Grim Spectrum of Emotions

From a busy San Fernando Valley bookstore to a ragtag corner of Watts’ Jordan Downs housing project, from a laundermat on a gritty Pico-Union corner to an upscale Westwood flower shop, runs a current of dismay about the deepening Rampart scandal in the Los Angeles Police Department.

It flickers in the words of business owners in suburban Northridge and central city Westlake, police supporters who want the department to maintain an aggressive stance against crime and who fear that the investigation could weaken that resolve.

It flashes explosively in the language of South-Central and Pico-Union youths and immigrants who tell firsthand of police beatings and intimidation and how their complaints were long ignored until one corrupt officer turned against others.

It echoes in the bewilderment of Crenshaw professionals and Eastside parents who see the feuding among government officials over the Rampart investigation and wonder if the justice system will ever punish all the guilty.

In dozens of interviews conducted across the breadth of Los Angeles, residents responded to the scandal with emotions as varied as the city itself. One thing they were not is indifferent.

The reactions were a kaleidoscope of anger, frustration, lost faith, helplessness and resentment. Sometimes all of those welled up in the same person, tumbling out in streams of conflicting emotions. But the overriding sentiment was of a breach of trust.

“What kind of a message does this send to children?” wondered Sharon Tucker, a 40-year-old graduate student who was sitting outside a sun-splashed Westwood Village restaurant recently.

Tucker said she had always taught her sons, now 20 and 14, to trust police and cooperate with them. But in Rampart’s wake, “how are they going to respect police? It says everything is up for grabs.”

Los Angeles may not be a city that fosters fervent politics and mass rallies. Still, Rampart has seeped into the consciousness of all sorts of citizens, the severity of reaction reflecting the differences in how everyday lives are lived in this ethnic and geographic octopus of a city.

Angelenos have read or heard a daily barrage of allegations offered up to investigators by ex-Officer Rafael Perez about the Rampart Division’s anti-gang CRASH unit: young men beaten and shot unjustly and at least one permanently crippled; false police reports; doctored crime scenes; perjured testimony; and drug dealing. Add to this an untamed mentality among rogue cops, including their own skull and crossbones tattoos, that mimicked those of the gangsters they were chasing.

Yet many residents maintain that those revelations are smearing the vast majority of Los Angeles police who are honest. They say the allegations only reinforce their impression that the average cop faces perilous duties day in and day out and must be allowed latitude to keep neighborhoods safe.

Business Owner Finds Officers Courteous

Walter Prince, a civic activist who runs a janitorial service in Northridge, said his business has been burglarized three times in the past six months and each time the responding officers proved to be professional, thorough and courteous.

“I like the cops,” said Prince, 64. “And I feel sorry for all the good ones out there--and most of them are good--because of what those bad apples down in Rampart have done. I guess it’s a sympathy thing. On the whole, these guys are just so darn impressive. You just don’t see many cops these days that you say, ‘Man, I want to turn that guy in to his supervisor.’ ”

Law-Abiding Citizens ‘Have Nothing to Fear’

Bob Wooldridge, the owner of a Westlake hardware store, said the stakes are even higher in his neighborhood, where he credits Rampart police with reducing prostitution, drug dealing and gang violence.

“Some of us are willing to give up our rights, like with random searches,” said Wooldridge, who has lived in the area since 1961. “If you’re a law-abiding citizen, you have nothing to fear from the police.”

“We couldn’t keep our [store] door open during the day,” said his wife, Bertha, who, after she was robbed at gunpoint in 1992, helped form a Neighborhood Watch group called the Westlake Protectors.

“We’re not going to let eight years of work go down the drain because one or two people screwed up,” she said, referring to corrupt officers. “If [police] get rough, it’s probably because the gang members deserve it.”

But consider the scene that played out recently a few miles away. Resentment toward what many in low-income neighborhoods view as high-handed enforcement surfaced during a manhunt near Rampart Boulevard and 6th Street last week. Rampart officers confronted a man who allegedly bit one of them and tried to run away. As the police, with guns drawn and German shepherds aiding them, chased the suspect, scores of residents stood behind yellow tape watching the drama.

When the man, 23-year-old Walter Hamilton, emerged from an abandoned building in handcuffs with a gaping, bloody gash on his head, the anger in the crowd was palpable. Police said they found a handgun on Hamilton, and he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. But for many spectators, that wasn’t the whole story.

“That’s not right,” Janet Ramirez, 19, said as Hamilton was carted away by paramedics on a stretcher. “Look at how [messed] up they left him. They didn’t have to treat him like that.”

Charlotte Jackson, a 48-year-old nurse, added: “Good ol’ Rampart. They can’t get enough, can they?”

Leeland Willis, 22, quipped: “He’s lucky he’s not knocked cold. I guess the Rampart Division is under too much heat now to do that.”

These are streets where crime is common and frequently brutal and where the response of police is sometimes equally blunt. But many residents in poor neighborhoods said they felt little comfort from the anti-gang CRASH patrols, which were recently disbanded in response to the scandal.

Kicking back with a group of young friends in a South-Central frontyard on Century Boulevard, an area served by the LAPD’s 77th Street Station, Shannon Sims talked about one CRASH officer who had a menacing tattoo on his forearm.

“He was showing it to us and was like, ‘This is my gang. This is where I come from,’ ” said Sims.

For Sims and his buddies, the alleged Rampart misdeeds were no surprise. Sims said the officer who flashed his tattoo tried to set him up by “putting weed on me.” He was arrested on suspicion of drug possession, he said, and then offered a deal by the police to inform on a friend wanted in another case.

Eventually, Sims said, the court threw out his case because of a lack of evidence.

More common than alleged police misconduct were reports of more everyday slights and grievances such as traffic stops.

Scandal Comes as No Surprise

Anthony Sykes, a financial manager for Fox Family Channel in Westwood, said he’s never had difficulties with police in that neighborhood. However, he said that may be because he always wears a suit and tie to work.

As an African American, Sykes said he has endured numerous unwarranted stops and interviews by police in other areas of the city, particularly in his younger days.

Sykes, 35, who lives in Hollywood, said he wasn’t so much shocked at the Rampart disclosures as he was surprised that it eventually surfaced in public.

“The people who are shocked by this have been living in the dark,” he said. “I think it’s great that it’s finally being exposed. It’s opening people’s eyes, and I hope that now there will really be a change.”

White Angelenos said they too have been witness to police abuse. Their testimony is an indication of how strongly personal experience can color perceptions of authority.

Shane Garrett lauds the efforts of local police when it comes to safeguarding his tiny flower shop in Westwood Village. Just six months ago, officers recovered a prized topiary that was dragged off from in front of his shop one night.

Nevertheless, the 30-year-old business owner said he’s always had a low opinion of law enforcement in general, and Rampart has only reinforced that view. He related an incident from 10 years ago, when riot police, he said, overreacted in quelling disturbances in Westwood accompanying the opening of a film on gang life: “I had 50 people trapped in my store and the police had their batons out. A few people got beat up.”

Police supporters--in poor barrios as well as wealthy enclaves-- say the department is being unfairly smeared and they fear that sinking police morale will make it impossible for the overwhelming numbers of good cops to do their job. What is most important, they say, is the security of their families and businesses.

Many Fear Abuses Are More Widespread

“I think the police are doing a good job,” said Yolanda Martinez, 48, a school crossing guard in Boyle Heights, a working-class, predominantly Latino neighborhood east of downtown.

Each day she shuttles schoolchildren across a busy Cesar Chavez Avenue intersection. The neighborhood police she sees have a good relationship with residents and store owners. And she said she was not bothered by the Rampart revelations.

“There’s a lot of danger around here,” Martinez said. “The police are doing a good job protecting people from it.”

Nevertheless, many citizens feel that police abuses must be more widespread than in a single clique of officers at one station. Even those who support the rank and file say there have been too many cover-ups, and too much incompetence in the Police Department’s internal investigations.

“When you look at the system, you see it’s busted,” said Prince, the owner of the Northridge janitorial service. “It’s time to stop sweeping problems under the carpet and get some good leadership.”

For many Angelenos, Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chief Bernard C. Parks are major parts of the problem.

“I think it’s so bad that they don’t want to admit how bad it is,” said Berlenn Cohall, a nurse who was with a group of out-of-town friends having lunch at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. “I heard Parks on a television show saying they didn’t need anybody from outside to look into this. But my theory is that if you’re not involved, you should be happy to find out what’s going on. It’s hard for the police to look at themselves.”

And many who are critical of the department were doubtful that the scandal would lead to sweeping changes. For them, the culture of the thin blue line is too ingrained.

“It means cleaning out the department, top to bottom; that’s what it takes,” said Michael Pipkins, 47, a businessman who commented while visiting a Crenshaw-area art boutique. “They need separate, independent civilian oversight. That’s the only way to get to the bottom of it.”

He and many others also voiced a sense of futility. “For many people in my community, everyday indignities and even brutality is so prevalent that it has taken the life out of us,” said Pipkins, who is African American.

A march to protest the handling of the Rampart investigation drew about 200 activists to downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday, a far cry from the thousands who have packed New York streets in recent months in response to the police shooting of African immigrant Amadou Diallo.

But 69-year-old retiree Doris Haynes said people in Los Angeles are more ready now to speak out about the scandal.

“The citizens in the community should have some say,” she said, working on a crossword puzzle in a nook of the Baldwin Hills mall. “There should be meetings in every community. We need to get together to talk about all of these things going on.”

Times staff writers Jeffrey Gettleman, Solomon Moore and Antonio Olivo and correspondent Monte Morin contributed to this story.