Ol’Otis
The Picasso of the Ghetto
Bad Cops - The New Yorker
On September 8, 1999, a thirty-two-year-old Los Angeles police officer named Rafael Perez, who had been caught stealing a million dollars’ worth of cocaine from police evidence-storage facilities, signed a plea bargain in which he promised to help uncover corruption within the Los Angeles Police Department. Perez hinted at a scandal that could involve perhaps five other officers, including a sergeant. Later, Perez began to talk about a different magnitude of corruption—wrongdoing that he claimed was endemic to special police units such as the one on which he worked, combatting gangs in the city’s dangerous Rampart district. Perez declared that bogus arrests, perjured testimony, and the planting of “drop guns” on unarmed civilians were commonplace. Perez’s story unfolded over a period of months, and ignited what came to be known as the Rampart scandal, which the Los Angeles Times called “the worst corruption scandal in L.A.P.D. history.”
Eventually, Perez implicated about seventy officers in wrongdoing, and the questions he raised about police procedure cast the city’s criminal-justice system into a state of tumult. More than a hundred convictions were thrown out, and thousands more are still being investigated. The city attorney’s office estimated the potential cost of settling civil suits touched off by the Rampart scandal at a hundred and twenty-five million dollars. A city councilman, Joel Wachs, said that it “may well be the worst man-made disaster this city has ever faced.” The Rampart scandal finally broke the L.A.P.D. in a way that even the Rodney King beating, in 1991, and its bloody aftermath had not, forcing the city to accept a federal role in overseeing the police department’s operation. Yet in the view of the lead investigator, Detective Brian Tyndall, members of the task-force team investigating Rampart have come to believe that Rafael Perez is not just a rogue cop who had decided to come clean but a brilliant manipulator who may have misdirected their inquiry. “He’s a convict,” Tyndall says. “He’s a perjurer. He’s a dope dealer. So we don’t believe a word he says.”
ray perez
david mack
Kevin Gaines
Kevin Gaines was shot and killed on March 18, 1997, by Lyga, who was ultimately determined to have been acting in self-defense. At the time of his death, Gaines was 31 and had been a member of the Los Angeles Police Department for seven years. Gaines had ties to Death Row Records, the Bloods, and was living with Suge Knight's ex-wife.
Lyga and other members of his team were staking out a suspected methamphetamine dealer, and Lyga was the point man, which required him to sit in an unmarked 1991 Buick Regal waiting for a drug deal to happen, so that he could follow the suspects back to their source and make the necessary arrests.
The operation was called off, and Lyga drove onto Ventura Boulevard. While he was stopped at a red light, a green sports utility vehicle driven by Gaines pulled up next to him; Gaines threatened Lyga. In response Lyga told Gaines to pull over for a confrontation. Gaines did pull over, but Lyga drove off; Gaines chased him, with the S.U.V. edging through heavy traffic until it neared Lyga's car. A concerned Lyga radioed his partners for help and readied himself to use his own gun. He saw Gaines had a gun and had threatened Lyga again. Lyga fired two shots at Gaines; the first missed, but the second hit the driver just below his right armpit, puncturing his heart before stopping in his lung. Gaines then pulled into a gas station and stopped. Lyga pulled into the gas station and identified himself as a police officer and asked a customer coming out of the station's mini-mart to call the 911 emergency number.
On September 8, 1999, a thirty-two-year-old Los Angeles police officer named Rafael Perez, who had been caught stealing a million dollars’ worth of cocaine from police evidence-storage facilities, signed a plea bargain in which he promised to help uncover corruption within the Los Angeles Police Department. Perez hinted at a scandal that could involve perhaps five other officers, including a sergeant. Later, Perez began to talk about a different magnitude of corruption—wrongdoing that he claimed was endemic to special police units such as the one on which he worked, combatting gangs in the city’s dangerous Rampart district. Perez declared that bogus arrests, perjured testimony, and the planting of “drop guns” on unarmed civilians were commonplace. Perez’s story unfolded over a period of months, and ignited what came to be known as the Rampart scandal, which the Los Angeles Times called “the worst corruption scandal in L.A.P.D. history.”
Eventually, Perez implicated about seventy officers in wrongdoing, and the questions he raised about police procedure cast the city’s criminal-justice system into a state of tumult. More than a hundred convictions were thrown out, and thousands more are still being investigated. The city attorney’s office estimated the potential cost of settling civil suits touched off by the Rampart scandal at a hundred and twenty-five million dollars. A city councilman, Joel Wachs, said that it “may well be the worst man-made disaster this city has ever faced.” The Rampart scandal finally broke the L.A.P.D. in a way that even the Rodney King beating, in 1991, and its bloody aftermath had not, forcing the city to accept a federal role in overseeing the police department’s operation. Yet in the view of the lead investigator, Detective Brian Tyndall, members of the task-force team investigating Rampart have come to believe that Rafael Perez is not just a rogue cop who had decided to come clean but a brilliant manipulator who may have misdirected their inquiry. “He’s a convict,” Tyndall says. “He’s a perjurer. He’s a dope dealer. So we don’t believe a word he says.”
ray perez
david mack
Kevin Gaines
Kevin Gaines was shot and killed on March 18, 1997, by Lyga, who was ultimately determined to have been acting in self-defense. At the time of his death, Gaines was 31 and had been a member of the Los Angeles Police Department for seven years. Gaines had ties to Death Row Records, the Bloods, and was living with Suge Knight's ex-wife.
Lyga and other members of his team were staking out a suspected methamphetamine dealer, and Lyga was the point man, which required him to sit in an unmarked 1991 Buick Regal waiting for a drug deal to happen, so that he could follow the suspects back to their source and make the necessary arrests.
The operation was called off, and Lyga drove onto Ventura Boulevard. While he was stopped at a red light, a green sports utility vehicle driven by Gaines pulled up next to him; Gaines threatened Lyga. In response Lyga told Gaines to pull over for a confrontation. Gaines did pull over, but Lyga drove off; Gaines chased him, with the S.U.V. edging through heavy traffic until it neared Lyga's car. A concerned Lyga radioed his partners for help and readied himself to use his own gun. He saw Gaines had a gun and had threatened Lyga again. Lyga fired two shots at Gaines; the first missed, but the second hit the driver just below his right armpit, puncturing his heart before stopping in his lung. Gaines then pulled into a gas station and stopped. Lyga pulled into the gas station and identified himself as a police officer and asked a customer coming out of the station's mini-mart to call the 911 emergency number.
