The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A City Council committee approved a blue ribbon commission to examine the Police Department’s reaction to the Rampart station corruption scandal.
The special commission was created by the Police Commission at the request of police Chief William J. Bratton. It will also consider whether the LAPD adequately investigated itself after former Officer Rafael Perez alleged widespread criminal conduct by officers.
The unanimous vote Monday by the council’s Public Safety Committee -- Cindy Miscikowski, Bernard C. Parks, Jack Weiss and Dennis Zine -- clears the way for full council action, perhaps this week.
“This day has been an awfully long time coming,” Weiss said. “There had been an awful lot of wagon circling for the past several months. I’m pleased that the panel is finally moving forward.”
Perez told detectives that he and his Rampart colleagues routinely beat and framed suspects in addition to lying in an effort to cover up unjustified shootings.
There has already been an investigation by the Rampart Board of Inquiry, a police union study by University of Southern California professor Erwin Chemerinsky, a Police Commission independent review panel, a county Bar Association task force and the district attorney’s office.
Constance Rice, civil rights attorney and chairwoman of the blue ribbon commission, said the group would “drill down” to investigate the systemic failures that led to Rampart and fix them, rather than focus on individual culpability.
The commission has a budget of $350,000, which was donated.
“If, after the board of inquiry and the independent panel and the grand jury and the Los Angeles County Bar and the consent decree, we hope that this will be the last report, and we should not be putting ourselves in the position that creates more questions than answers,” Parks said.