Los Angeles Police Department Rampart Division

Ileana Martinez stood on her stoop Wednesday and watched with some trepidation as a march against police brutality made its way, in a roar of chants, whistles and shouts, past her apartment building on Rampart Boulevard. "We don't have any problems with the police," she said. "But if they do, well, everyone's entitled to their opinion." Then, shading the sun from her eyes with her hand, she added, "But it looks ugly and it's making me nervous, and I'm going inside."

A sharply divided Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday signaled that it is not ready to embrace the idea of an independent outside investigation into the worst police scandal in city history. With most members voicing support for the civilian Police Commission, the council voted 8 to 6 to hold off on creating an independent panel to probe the scandal growing out of misconduct in the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division.

Immigration and Naturalization Service agents ordered to deport immigrants detained by anti-gang officers in the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division told investigators the assignment was "rammed down our throats" over the objections of the U.S. attorney's office after pressure from the FBI, according to federal documents.

With the Rampart police scandal costing taxpayers millions of dollars, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley earlier this month implemented a long-awaited policy aimed at ensuring that jurors know the background of officers scheduled to testify in court.

The epicenter of Los Angeles' Latino power structure may be the bustling immigrant neighborhoods patrolled by the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division. The Pico-Union, Westlake and Echo Park districts are represented by what reads like a Who's Who of rising Latino political stars: Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, state Senate Majority Leader Richard Polanco, Rep. Xavier Becerra and County Supervisor Gloria Molina.

The sensational revelations emerging from the LAPD's Rampart corruption scandal have sparked a bitter legal debate that promises to alter the landscape of the criminal justice system in Los Angeles County for years to come. At issue is exactly what defense attorneys are entitled to know--and when they are entitled to know it--about the credibility of the police officers who investigate, arrest and testify against their clients.

The key witness in a murder case currently awaiting trial in Superior Court has told The Times that he falsely identified the alleged killer after being coerced by an anti-gang officer and a homicide detective from the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division. Evelio "Rudy" Carrillo said in an interview that he told both the officer and the detective that he knew nothing of the Dec. 4, 1998, drive-by shooting they were investigating.

Anti-gang officers in the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division routinely and unnecessarily punched, kicked, choked and otherwise beat suspects in an effort to intimidate the gangs that the officers were charged with policing, according to confidential investigative documents and interviews.

Authorities increasingly suspect that frame-ups in the Los Angeles Police Department's troubled Rampart Division went beyond then-partners Rafael Perez and Nino Durden, and now are investigating allegations that another officer planted drugs on a man and then committed perjury to send him to prison. The framing of Walter Rivas, a reputed gang member, allegedly was carried out by Officer Michael Buchanan. "Who do you think they are going to believe, are they going to believe you or me?"

If there is any place that tests the character of Los Angeles police, it is in the neighborhoods west of downtown, where Rampart Division officers are sworn to protect many of the city's most powerless residents against some of its most violent. A complex mix of gangs, violence and poverty in the crowded Pico-Union and Westlake districts makes policing there an unmatched challenge.