Los Angeles Police Department Rampart Division

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.

Ex-Officer Rafael Perez and nearly a dozen other officers in the Los Angeles Police Department's now-notorious Rampart CRASH unit were tattooed with an ominous insignia that some say symbolized their dubious brand of policing. The officers, many of whom have been relieved of duty in connection with the department's ongoing corruption probe, had themselves tattooed with the image of a grinning skull with demonic eyes, several officers involved in the unit said.

The day the police planted a gun in his handcuffed hands, Roberto Candido couldn't afford a Happy Meal. Three years and a prison term later, Candido, 26, found himself in the Wells Fargo Beverly Hills branch, about to deposit his share of an $860,000 settlement check from the city of Los Angeles.

Two Los Angeles police officers implicated in an allegedly unjustified shooting incident by former LAPD Officer Rafael Perez have been cleared of misconduct charges by a departmental disciplinary board. Officers Kulin Patel and Michael Montoya were found not guilty this week of all the charges against them stemming from a 1996 shooting in the Rampart Division that left one man dead and two others injured, including an innocent bystander.

The Los Angeles Police Department failed time and again to take steps that might have headed off the worst corruption scandal in its history, according to a sweeping self-indictment prepared by the department's own leaders. In a letter accompanying the long-awaited Board of Inquiry report into the corruption centered in the department's Rampart Division, which will be released today, Police Chief Bernard C.

Two Los Angeles police sergeants and a former officer who were tried for allegedly conspiring to frame gang members are each suing the department for $10 million, contending they were used as "scapegoats" in the Rampart scandal. Sgts. Brian Liddy and Edward Ortiz and former Officer Michael Buchanan were convicted of the charge, but the convictions were overturned by the trial judge.

The Rampart scandal, which has shaken the Los Angeles Police Department to its core, may soon take an unlikely casualty: the Short Stop bar on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. Close to Dodger Stadium and the Police Academy, the Short Stop has been a favorite after-work hangout for patrol officers and detectives for more than 25 years. It is an informal museum of police lore, its walls lined with badges and glass cases filled with police caps.

The former girlfriend of convicted Rampart police officer Rafael Perez was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison Monday for fabricating a tale that Perez and another officer murdered three people. Because of Sonya Flores' allegations, the FBI spent nearly three months and about $350,000 looking in vain for bodies she claimed were buried in a Tijuana ravine.

When Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley announced three months ago that his office was wrapping up its investigation into the Rampart police corruption scandal, he made a point of informing the public that a key figure in the case -- former Officer Nino Durden -- implicated only himself and his partner, Rafael Perez, in any wrongdoing.

After days of contentious negotiations, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti on Friday gave the public defender and the Indigent Defense Panel 3,242 pages of transcribed interviews with ex-Officer Rafael Perez and the names of 28 LAPD officers implicated in crimes or misconduct connected to the ongoing Rampart corruption scandal, four of whom remain on active duty.