Charles Rappleye

The watchdog commission that oversees the LAPD conducted a formal review Tuesday of the security operations surrounding the Democratic National Convention, and then gave the department an ovation. Not a word of criticism was offered for police actions over the course of four days of street demonstrations that provoked 200......

Photo by Nick Ut When he announced last September the suspensions of 12 officers based on the allegations of an admitted rogue cop, LAPD Chief Bernard Parks asserted that “We take Rafael Perez at his word.” That strategy will be tested next week in the first criminal case brought against......

It may be true that cops are taking a beating these days in the court of public opinion, but juries still seem inclined to favor officers when their stories are challenged in the courtroom. That seemed apparent last week when a federal jury declined to assess damages against an off-duty......

Police critics say the Rampart scandal is bigger than just one division of the LAPD. But a Superior Court jury held early this month that the problem of systematic police misconduct extends beyond Los Angeles as well. The case stemmed from the in-custody death of Kenneth Wayne Callis, a black......

Photo by Ted Soqui Last october, Superior Court Judge William Pounders opened the door to José Luis Frutis, convicted in 1982 of a murder he swears he did not commit, to argue his innocence one more time. On Monday, Pounders slammed that door shut. After hearing three days of testimony......

It was backslapping all around when the region’s top law-enforcement officials convened a news conference last week to announce the first federal indictments against LAPD officers since the Rodney King beating. “We will prosecute corrupt officers as aggressively as permitted under federal law,” declared U.S. Attorney Alejandro Mayorkas, as county......

On the morning of Friday, April 7, in a hushed downtown courtroom and with a bespectacled judge looking on intently, state-prison lifer Joey Garcia confessed to a murder he said he’d committed some two decades before. Tall and broad, with a shaved head and a glowering frown, Garcia‘s 19 years......

Photo by Ted Soqui For all the squabbling and recriminations over who should do what with the Rampart scandal, Police Chief Bernard Parks and District Attorney Gil Garcetti have so far succeeded in keeping details of their wide-ranging investigations secret. Even the confession of Rafael Perez, the rogue officer turned......

With welling tears and a faltering voice, Estela Rodriguez took the podium at Immanuel Presbyterian Church Thursday night and gave thanks. ”That‘s the hardest thing for a mother, not to be able to be with her son. Now I have him back with me.“ The reunion was made possible last......

Photo by Ted SoquiOn February 10, just three weeks before Chief Bernard Parks presented his long-awaited Board of Inquiry report to the Police Commission and the public, a Rampart CRASH officer delivered an unprovoked beating to an unarmed suspect, according to a formal complaint. The officer involved, Jesus Amezcua, has......