Police Add Old Cases to Probe of 2 Officers

Calling an investigation into allegedly rogue Los Angeles police officers “very sensitive and significant in nature,” a top LAPD official said Thursday that detectives are taking a fresh look at several unsolved crimes once thought to be the work of common thugs, but now suspected to have involved some of the LAPD’s own.

Deputy Chief J.I. Davis said detectives also were reopening several internal affairs investigations involving officers who are now implicated in the brewing scandal.

Davis called the news conference in response to a Times article Thursday, which disclosed that federal and local authorities are investigating allegations that LAPD officers Ruben Palomares and William Ferguson committed a series of invasion-style robberies of drug dealers, stealing narcotics and money.

“While the investigation is both very sensitive and significant in nature . . . it is our duty to make the public aware that LAPD investigators have been involved in this ongoing investigation to rid the department of corruption at all levels,” said Davis, who was flanked by a grim-faced Police Commission President Rick Caruso.

After the news conference, Caruso promised a thorough investigation.

“We just got through one problem, and now we’re back into another one,” Caruso said, referring to the notorious corruption scandal in the Rampart Division. “We need to go back and look at everything. We need to fully investigate why this allegedly occurred and make sure we put things in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Caruso said the allegations were devastating to department morale.

“The worst kind of criminal is one who’s been given the public trust and violates it,” he said. “It impacts every officer in the field. The good officers don’t deserve this.”

Attorneys for Palomares and Ferguson, both of whom have been relieved of duty for more than a year, denied that the two officers were involved in crimes together.

The investigation into Palomares, Ferguson and others was launched in June after Palomares was arrested on charges of attempting to buy 10 kilograms of cocaine from undercover DEA agents in San Diego. After his arrest, a co-defendant in the case implicated him in an unsolved 1999 murder in Bell, as well as the alleged drug rip-offs with Ferguson.

Davis confirmed that detectives are investigating allegations that LAPD officers were involved in “theft, burglary, robbery and murder.” The probe focuses on the alleged criminal activities of Palomares but includes “other LAPD officers,” he said.

Davis released few details of the probe and identified only Palomares by name. The deputy chief said detectives were conducting a “thorough examination” of Palomares’ work history, as well as the other officers under investigation.

Although Ferguson and Palomares spent time in the troubled Rampart Division during the late 1990s--when ex-officer-turned-informant Rafael Perez alleged that criminal misconduct by officers was rampant--the current investigation is not related to the Rampart corruption probe.

Both officers have previously come under scrutiny at the LAPD. In interviews with authorities, Perez identified Palomares as being “in the loop” of corrupt officers who he claimed routinely committed crimes and misconduct in the Rampart Division. He alleged that Palomares was involved in an unjustified shooting in which he and his partner planted a gun on an unarmed man.

Ferguson has faced several disciplinary hearings since he joined the LAPD in 1997. Last month, the city paid $1.7 million to settle a civil lawsuit in which he was accused of shooting at an unarmed man and planting drugs on two of the man’s friends. The settlement was reached after Ferguson and partner Jeffrey Robb refused to testify in the case, citing their constitutional rights against self-incrimination.