Blue: The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing (66 page)

Brian Hewitt/choking the handcuffed Jimenez
: “Beatings Alleged to Be Routine at Rampart,”
LAT
, February 14, 2000.

punched him . . . in the chest
: “Good Cop, Bad Cop.”

Jimenez threw up
: Ibid.

Investigators would later find the outline of his blood-saturated vomit
: Ibid.

doctor and security guard reported his injuries
: Ibid.

Rafael “Ray” Perez, Monday, March 2, 1998, LAPD Property Division

On a rainy L.A. day
: “Ray’s World,”
New Times Los Angeles
, August 17, 2000.

He’d disguised his face . . . Coke-bottle reading glasses
: “Sloppy LAPD Evidence Rules Led to Coke Theft,”
LADN
, February 27, 2000; “Ray’s World.”

“I need this”
: “Ray’s World”; “The Dirtiest Cop Alive.”

6.6 pounds of powder cocaine
: “Bad Cops.”

Joel
Perez
: Ibid.

Bisquick flour
: “Sloppy LAPD Evidence Rules Led to Coke Theft”; “Bad Cops”;
Frontline,
PBS, May 15, 2001.

“rude” was the word
: “Fall of Partners Feeds LAPD Corruption Probe”; “The Dirtiest Cop Alive.”

Ray had “Negro” features
:
Frontline
, PBS, May 15, 2001.

and spoke Spanish effortlessly
: Ibid.

Kevin Gaines
: “Bad Cops.”

Matt Lait and Scott Glover, August 1998, San Fernando Valley

A briefing . . . suburban San Fernando Valley
: Domanick,
Covering Police in Times of Crisis
, 44.

“LAPD only, check your guns at the door”
: Ibid.

a guy in a Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans
: Ibid.

investigating
seven
shootings
: Ibid.

Rampart CRASH “had a crash pad”
: Ibid.

“I had sex in this CRASH pad all the time”
: Ibid.

more secrets, which Lait and Glover memorized
: Ibid.

“backgrounding” the officers
: Ibid., 41.

“sounding weird”
: Ibid., 42.

The
Times
would hold off running the story
: Tim Rutten interview; Domanick,
Covering Police in Times of Crisis
, 40.

a working-class Irish Catholic’s sense of right and wrong
: Tim Rutten interview.

married to the crusading firebrand defense attorney Leslie Abramson
: “Thoughts on Tim Rutten,”
L.A. Observed
, August 13, 2011.

“Can we go with the story?”
: Tim Rutten interview.

“We gave our word”
: Ibid.

“they are going to fuck us”
: Ibid.

“a little prissy, a little self-righteous”
: Ibid.

“I’ll be damned if that evening”
: Ibid.

“glue yourself to this guy Perez”
: Ibid.

“This story is your life”
: Ibid.

Curtis Woodle and Joel Perez, April and May 1998, Las Vegas and Los Angeles

Woodle was in a Las Vegas casino with his ex-wife
: Curtis Woodle interview.

“What the fuck?”
: Ibid.

Hawaiian shirt
: Ibid.

everybody in the Operations Central Bureau CRASH unit
: Ibid.

“After the third memo”
: Ibid.

“Sarge, I have never”
: Ibid.

“This is crazy man, this is crazy!”
: Ibid.

Bernard Parks, Summer 1998, Parker Center

if you were a reporter he didn’t like
: Tim Rutten interview.

“funny, cordial, and immensely personable”
: Charlie Beck interview.

forty-page strategic plan
: Ibid.

“clear to Parks. But it just wasn’t clear to the rest of us”
: Ibid.

“in a lot of ways . . . he was”
: Ibid.

“Parks
[
would
]
demand a report and then grade it”
: Ibid.

“his attitude was always ‘I am teaching you and mentoring you’ ”
: Ibid.

Rafael “Ray” Perez, Summer 1998, Ladera Heights

they discovered the Bisquick
:
Frontline
, PBS, May 15, 2001.

Two of the phone calls . . . his girlfriend, Veronica Quesada
: Ibid.

Ray dressed in a red running suit
: Ibid.

new home . . . Ladera Heights
: Ibid.

Eddie Bauer–model Ford Explorer
: Ibid.

his wife a BMW
: Ibid.

Bernard Parks, August 1998, Parker Center

Ray wasn’t the only Perez
: “The Inspector General,”
Buzz
, March 1998; “Police Panel Leader Admits to Anonymous Mailings,”
LAT
, December 4, 1998; “Perez Won’t Be Reappointed to Police Panel,”
LAT
, June 16, 1999.

85 percent of the Christopher Commission reforms
: “The Insiders,”
LA Weekly
, March 8, 2000, accessed March 23, 2015,
http://www.laweekly.com/news/the-insiders-2131735
.

“
[
bore
]
directly on the current
[
Rampart
]
scandal”
: Ibid.

“There were comments made about Mader”
: “The Insiders.”

“Two directors of the Police Protective League”
: Ibid.

anonymous brown envelopes
: “Police Panel Leader Admits to Anonymous Mailings.”

“unilaterally . . . putting restrictions on
[
him
]
”
: “LAPD Corruption Probe May Be Test for City Leaders,”
LAT
, September 20, 1999.

Bernard Parks, Summer 1998, Parker Center

“stealing her ovaries”
: “Cops on the Carpet,”
LA Weekly
, July 3–9, 1998.

25 percent increase in the number of civilian complaints against LAPD officers
: Ibid.

400 percent rise in civilian complaints against officers overall
: Ibid.

two hundred Board of Rights hearings
: Ibid.

compared to eighty-one two years earlier
: Ibid.

thirty-five officers had been fired
: Ibid.

as opposed to seventeen in Willie Williams’s last year
: Ibid.

applications to join the LAPD had dropped
: “Parks Gets a Second Chance,”
LAT
, July 15, 2001.

LAPD officers had declined by eight hundred
: Ibid.

“I was having the best . . . come into my office”
: Charlie Beck interview.

“the ludicrous nature of the kind of prioritization”
: Ibid.

“wedge between Parks and the rank and file”
: Ibid.

“the smartest guy I have ever met”
: Patrick Gannon interview.

“begging for leadership as an organization”
: Ibid.

nine thousand strong-willed men and women
: William Bratton interview.

Rafael “Ray” Perez, Wednesday, September 8, 1999, Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office

the part of the probe . . . Parks had ordered shut down
: “L.A. Confidential”; “Who Killed Biggie Smalls?”
Salon
, October 16, 2000.

Meeting over fifty times in two secret locations
:
Frontline
, PBS, May 15, 2001; “Ray’s World”; “Bad Cops.”

more than four thousand pages of answers
:
Frontline
, PBS, May 15, 2001.

“70 to 80 percent of Perez’s allegations . . . corroborated”
: “Perez’s Credibility under New Attack,”
LAT
, September 26, 2000.

“Ray would say ‘Oh, that’s a bad one, that’s a good one’ ”
: Patrick Gannon interview.

“In some cases . . . Rafael was credible”
: Ibid.

“Rafael Perez was a liar”
: Ibid.

failed an LAPD polygraph test
: “One Bad Cop.”

had to move quickly
: Patrick Gannon interview.

“limited only to Rampart CRASH”
: Ibid.

Bill Boyarsky, December 1999, Downtown Los Angeles Minibus

Bill Boyarsky loved public transportation
: Bill Boyarsky interview; Tim Rutten interview.

“Are you a lawyer?”
: Bill Boyarsky interview.

working-class Jewish guy from the Bay Area
: “An Advocate for Jewish Interests in L.A.’s Diverse Public Schools,”
Jewish Journal
, April 27, 2010; Tim Rutten interview.

he had transcripts of the DA/LAPD Perez interviews
: Bill Boyarsky interview.

unused city editor office
: Tim Rutten interview.

sent for a messenger to start copying
: Ibid.

“This guy has everything”
: Ibid.

check into a hotel
: Ibid.

“One simply had to look at the
L.A. Times
”
:
Frontline
, PBS, May 15, 2001.

Richard Riordan became so angry
: Tim Rutten interview.

Michael Parks, who essentially shrugged
: Ibid.

Parks . . . had worked as a foreign correspondent in South Africa, China, and Moscow
: Ibid.

Downing was never a journalist
: Ibid.

“In the old days before Michael Parks”
: Ibid.

Rafael “Ray” Perez, Friday, February 25, 2000, Downtown Los Angeles Superior Court