Charles Rappleye

After the horror of the devastation in New York City and Washington, D.C., no image so incensed Americans as the pictures of Palestinian militants firing off guns in triumph and distributing candy to children to celebrate the disaster. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah spoke for millions when he vowed, ”Those......

Peter Bart is back at Variety, his transgressions forgiven -- or at least unproven -- and his mantle as the Conscience of Hollywood restored. But Bart‘s reprieve doesn’t close out the Year of Living Scrupulously for scribes toiling at the entertainment industry‘s other daily publication. Yet to be resolved is......

Photo by Robert Yager Deputy District Attorney Richard Rosenthal knew he had a major case on his hands when he scheduled his first interview with Rafael Perez. After all, the rogue officer had just agreed to disclose two wrongful shootings in return for a reduced sentence on charges of stealing......

It’s no surprise that the national media have weighed in with major stories on L.A.‘s long-simmering police scandal -- The New Yorker, in its May 21 edition; television’s FrontLine, covering the same material with the same correspondent; and Rolling Stone on June 7. After all, Rafael Perez is scheduled for......

Taylor was slain at a family gathering on New Year‘s Eve, 1998, by anti-gang-unit officers assigned to a special detail aimed at stomping out the holiday practice of shooting off guns in the air. Former CRASH Officer Rafael Perez described another New Year’s Eve incident as one of several “dirty......

Photo by Virginia Lee Hunter ARMANDO CORONADO WAS A RISING star in the navy-blue firmament of the LAPD. A former Marine and a fluent Spanish-speaker, Coronado had a flair for undercover work that helped him become a leader at the narcotics-enforcement section of the Rampart Division -- "Our number-one, best-producing......

”What a difference an election makes!“ That was the reply offered by a key figure in the Rampart Division investigation when asked what might have triggered sudden heat on a trail that had long gone cold. The election in question was Steve Cooley’s landslide victory over incumbent D.A. Gil Garcetti......

Photos by Robert Yager The LAPD has an organizational culture that emphasizes crime control over crime prevention and that isolates the police from the communities they serve . . . It is now time to develop programs to de-emphasize force and promote restraint, to foster within the LAPD a different......

Rafael Perez took another hit to his credibility Tuesday as yet another officer was exonerated by an internal disciplinary board of charges leveled by the onetime CRASH officer. The ruling raises to 20 the number of officers accused by Perez but found innocent of those charges by the department. In......