Rampart Reconsidered: The Search for Real Reform Seven Years Later, was a Blue Ribbon Panel chaired by Constance L. Rice. A blue ribbon panel is a diverse group of respected professionals charged by the city to investigate an issue, create a report and make recommendations.
Rampart Reconsidered makes for great reading on the scandal. It also mentions Metro Division directly, 17 times. Evidently, many officers from Rampart CRASH graduated into Metro and other elite units. Since so much of the initial internal investigation was badly botched, many CRASH officers were never prosecuted, and thus went on to Metro. When the investigators for Rampart Reconsidered requested records of officers who had been part of Rampart CRASH, many records came up missing. When the investigators pursued these missing records they were told "it would not happen. Metro was untouchable." (Pg 48)
An audit of Metro was begun but never completed. Reasons remain unexplained. (Pg 62)
I have also been noticing a trend to start calling the Rampart Scandal the "Raphael Perez Scandal." But according to Rampart Reconsidered, the scandal was endemic and brought on by bad leadership, an outdated and bad crime fighting model based on aggressive, untargeted, proactive policing methods that destroy public-police trust. It recommends that the LAPD should transition from this kind of policing to the "High Road" policing the new Rampart division is beginning to develop. It further recommends that the LAPD should end "thin blue line" policing and develop a new blueprint for providing public safety.
This report came out in 2007.
One would think that the least we could expect from Metro Division is the missing records and the audit of former CRASH officers among their ranks before they return to their old hunting grounds. I, for one, do not relish the idea of an "untouchable" police division in this 'hood.
-AE