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THE VIEW FROM HERE - Rather than go back to ancient history to list all of Los Angeles Police Department’s fiascos, let’s just start with the 1990's.
(1) Rodney King Beating
(2) Rodney King Trial and Aftermath
(3) OJ Simpson Investigation and Mark Fuhrman’s Perjury
The sorriest point may be the LAPD knew Mark Fuhrman committed perjury when he denied using the N-word; yet, no one came forward. DDA Marcia Clark had to know and yet she put him on the stand. Let’s be charitable to Ms. Clark and say she thought he’d tell the truth. When he committed perjury, she had an ethical duty. Oh that’s right, when has the LA District Attorney Office ever been on speaking terms with ethics, or truth, or justice, or the rule of law?
(4) The Ramparts Scandal
The Ramparts Scandal covered several years during which time LAPD had ties with Death Row Records. After the LAPD Crash Unit broke into Javier Ovando apartment and shot him, the LAPD with the full cooperation of the criminal courts, who just loved those Ramparts knights, convicted Ovando of attempted murder. After the cover-up of the LAPD’s Crash unit’s behavior eventually failed, LA had to pay out $125 million to its victims with $15 million going to Ovando whom the LAPD had been paralyzed from the waist down. wiki
The 2001 Consent Decree
Finally, the US Department of Justice placed the LAPD under a consent decree, and in effect the DoJ gave the LAPD a parole officer in the form of U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess. It took over ten years before the LAPD got off parole (2001 - 2013). It was, however, a transformed department until now.
Is The LAPD Failing in Its Greatest Challenge?
While beatings and deaths satisfy the media’s motto, “If it bleeds, its leads,” for Angelenos a far more important task faces the LAPD – the investigation of the leaking and the promotion of the illegally made audio tape of the three Mexican city councilmembers. Over 99% of Angelenos don’t yet realize why this is LAPD’s greatest challenge. According to the LA Times, the LAPD has already blotched the job in a way no TV cop show would allow. LAPD outsourced its investigation to the Los Angeles County of Federation which made the illegal tape!
“[On Tuesday, July 18, 2023] Yvonne Wheeler, the federation’s president, told the executive board about the work of the group’s forensic investigator, who interviewed federation staff and examined each staffer’s laptop computer in the wake of the audio leak, said the source, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the federation’s internal investigation.” [bold added] July 24, 2023, LA Times
The LAPD Let the Federation Conduct the Forensic Examination
Al Capone wishes that he had known that he could have his own accountant audit his books for IRS for evidence of tax evasion. What police department in its right mind lets the prime suspects possess and tamper with the crucial evidence?
When did the LAPD get around to seizing the computers? July 13, 2023. According to the LA Times, which has insider sources, the only computers they seized were those of Santos Leon and his wife Karla Vasquez. That’s it. No one else. The LAPD let the Federation conduct the LAPD’s investigation and have all the evidence under its control for nine (9) months, i.e., the gestation period of a cover-up.
The LA Times repeats that the LAPD allowed the culprit to do the investigation. “During that (Federation) inquiry, the forensic investigator found sound-editing software on Leon’s computer and turned its findings over to the LAPD, the source said.”
The Federation had months to remove the recording devices, to load tons of stuff on the Leon’s computer, to wipe clean all Federation’s computers, and to cleanse all documents about the installation of the system. Good luck finding anything incriminating about the tapes’ usage as a dirty political trick.
The day the illegally recorded tape was made public, the LAPD should have obtained a search warrant for the Federation to find the recording equipment. Ten to one, it had the installer’s finger prints. (Oh, I guess fingerprints are too modern an investigative technique for the LAPD.) They knew the room where the recording was made. While it is possible that whoever coordinated and promoted the leak had removed the recording equipment before October 2022, one obtains a search warrant ASAP before any more evidence is destroyed.
And guess what, according to the LA Times story, the LAPD still has not gone to the scene of the crime! Did they think Leon did the recording by magical vibrations from his bedroom? Doesn’t the LAPD know what a microphone is and how it functions? And this leads to another question: Why are people looking for software and ignoring the recording equipment?
The Big Issue
While LAPD’s destroyed chain of evidence and its abdication of its duty to investigate boggle the mind, the LAPD’s apparent role in the cover-up including who released and promoted the tape’s racist disinformation looks criminal. The False Narrative of racism resulted in political violence, death threats, people’s homes being surrounded by mobs reminiscent of a Frankenstein movies. Los Angeles has had violent protests over police beatings and corrupt jury verdicts, but we have never before had a planned, coordinated attack upon councilmembers to force them out of office by lies, deceit and police condoned violence.
What does the LAPD do? Nada. It allows the Federation to conduct the investigation and to hand pick the evidence which the LAPD may see. Worse yet, the LAPD has abandoned arresting of Jason Reedy for his stalking, assault, and battery on Kevin DeLeon. Don’t be so naive as to believe that it is open-season only on Kevin.
The illegal tape was criminal step #1, but the crime’s significance is the subversion of the peaceful democratic process. Reversal of elections by lies and violence seems to becoming an American thing. Great harm has been done to Los Tres, but all Angelenos are suffering. The political structure of the city is not merely corrupt, but now it is based on defamatory lies, on deaths threats, on mobs surrounding councilmembers’ homes, and on physical attacks in public – all with approval of Mayor Karen Bass and the LAPD.
Guess what Angelenos? We’re on our own; no cavalry is coming to our rescue; there’s no DoJ with a consent decree. Just the Woker-Developer Alliance.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a former attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected]. The opinions expressed within this content are solely Richard Abrams’ and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of CityWatchLA.com or its affiliates.)
