With Disney Hall and the Chandler Pavilion a scant mile or so down the road from the old Rampart Station, you'd think the folks at Parker Center would hear the music better. Perhaps the estimated $125 Million dollar settlement that we paid out for some of the wrongs our CRASH Units did left a little ringing in the ears.
"HEY CITY OF LA, YOU CAN DO BETTER THEN STICK A SWAT TEAM AND A K9 UNIT AT RAMPART!"
Is this an instance of tone deafness or lack of imagination? Deaf to the history of violence perpetrated on a community- planting seeds of lingering deep distrust. Lacking imagination of ways that measure Q allows the city to make the place into something we can be proud of.
A K9 and Swat Unit, is this a joke? Is it the fact that so many Hollywood scripts were inspired by Rafael Perez that we accept this kind of poor taste? Is the city just looking to inspire yet another distopian movie about LA? I think it's time for a rewrite all together. The Shield wasn't that entertaining and we are a lot more imaginative than this.
With this in mind we invite you to give us your (constructive?) suggestions of what you'd like to see replace the old Rampart station. Leave an idea by commenting below!
Rampart Reconsidered
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 But according to Rampart Reconsidered, the scandal was endemic and brought on by bad leadership, an outdated and bad crime fighting model based on aggressive, untargeted, proactive policing methods that destroy public-police trust.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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)