Police Brutality Los Angeles

Three have been fired and 10 have quit. Nine have been promoted. Two have killed suspects while on duty. And one stands accused of falsifying evidence in a murder case. For most of the 44 Los Angeles Police Department officers labeled "problem officers" in the landmark 1991 Christopher Commission report, the past four years have been tumultuous. The commission said its intention was to illustrate, not define, what it called "the problem of excessive force in the LAPD."

It's approaching midnight as Kevin Lamar Evans is maneuvered in an L.A. County wheelchair into the forensic inpatient unit of the mammoth Twin Towers jail--a banal brown behemoth of postmodern prison architecture that stands like an unwelcoming sentinel on the eastern fringes of downtown Los Angeles. Just 4 years old, Twin Towers is a vast improvement over the old, dungeon-like Men's Central Jail.

For weeks now, Tony Everfield has been planning a June vacation with his three children to Disneyland. But after watching two nights of rioting across Los Angeles on the television, Everfield was racked Friday by second thoughts. "I don't want my kids involved in seeing the violence," said the Oakland chef. "Los Angeles was a beautiful city. It just looks awful from what I've seen on the news. It will frighten the hell out of you.

There's no denying Sanford Diamond can be excitable. High blood pressure can do that to you, he says. So can the frustration of trying to communicate with a world you cannot hear. But even after the deaf and diabetic 72-year-old was handcuffed, brought to the ground, allegedly roughed up and finally cut loose by Los Angeles police, all he really wanted from the city was an apology and $5,850 for a new set of teeth, he says.

Los Angeles Police Officer Henry J. Cousine--a police ring on his finger, an LAPD tattoo on his leg and battle scars on his body--says the officers accused of beating Rodney G. King swung their batons like "little girls." Then he ticks off some of his own episodes of violence during a decade as a beat cop: three fights and three shootings. "You get in my face, I'm going to fight back," Cousine said. "You swing at me, I'm going to knock you off your feet. And you pull a gun, I'll kill you."

Even Hank Cousine admits that he's not the sort of fellow you would expect to find suing the Los Angeles Police Department for excessive force. On the other hand, having been labeled as one of the department's 44 "problem" officers by the Christopher Commission several years ago, perhaps he is something of an expert on the topic. "I've never been on this side of the table before," Cousine said in an interview this week, noting the irony in his status as victim and plaintiff.

In the shadow of a flaming mini-mall near the corner of 5th and Western, behind a barricade of luxury sedans and battered grocery trucks, they built Firebase Koreatown. Richard Rhee, owner of the supermarket on the corner, had watched as roving bands of looters ransacked and burned Korean-owned businesses on virtually every block. But here, it would be different. "Burn this down after 33 years?"

As soon as the black-and-white images of what he calls the "infamous incident" flashed across the nation's television screens, Daryl Francis Gates was back on familiar turf. Many times in his turbulent 13-year reign as Los Angeles police chief he has been on the defensive: the "normal people" controversy, the "Aryan broad" gaffe, the "El Salvadoran drunk" furor, the casual drug users "ought to be taken out and shot" uproar. This time, the stakes are higher.

Three Los Angeles police officers indicted in the Rodney G. King case have told department investigators that they feared for their lives during the beating of the motorist and were ready to shoot him if necessary. The officers' first detailed account of their actions is contained in a comprehensive 314-page Los Angeles Police Department Internal Affairs report on the incident, obtained Monday by The Times.

In a ruling that sends the Rodney G. King police beating case back to Los Angeles for at least one more hearing, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found Thursday that King's "misconduct" and the burden of a double trial justified the lenient, 30-month sentences imposed on two officers found guilty of violating his civil rights.

The Cameraman] Jolted out of bed by police sirens and helicopters on March 3, 1991, George Holliday grabbed his new Sony Handycam and, from the balcony of his Lake View Terrace apartment, recorded nine minutes of footage that included the King beating. The grainy video, first broadcast on KTLA-TV Channel 5, was soon transmitted to networks worldwide.

It changed Los Angeles and forced a nation to again confront the issues of racism and police brutality. To African Americans, the videotaped images of police officers pummeling a black man was see-it-for-yourself proof of the street justice they had long complained about receiving at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department. For once, they weren't ignored. With outrage extending all the way to the White House, Los Angeles first reeled, and then demanded reform. Police Chief Daryl F.

The frame jiggles erratically. The coding at the bottom of the grainy black-and-white image says it is March 3, 1991. Now the camera rests and we see a black man writhing in the dirt. We see police officers, sometimes two or three at a time, swinging batons with full force onto his legs, his back, his head. We see him stretch out his hand; we see them strike it. Twice he attempts to rise; we see them stomp him down. The camera pans.

The participants in Sunday's violent confrontation between police and protesters outside Parker Center clashed again Monday, as both sides accused the other of violence and hair-trigger reactions to provocation. Although the Los Angeles Police Department declined to make official comment pending a complete review of the incident, some officers defended their use of batons and rubber projectiles against demonstrators who, according to the LAPD, taunted, defied and pelted officers with debris.

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.

As the police corruption scandal grows around the Rampart Division, accusations against anti-gang officers in another part of Los Angeles underscore the city's lax handling of misconduct claims through much of the 1990s, including those involving its hard-charging CRASH units.

Volker's mission was to find a fleeing gang member who had taken part in a pre-dawn shooting in Hollywood and slipped away. But when Volker, a German shepherd in the Los Angeles Police Department's K-9 unit, emerged from a nearby toolshed, his jaws were locked around the arm of someone other than the gunman. Hortencio Torres, 25, had been living in the shed, and he had nothing to do with the 1988 shooting incident.

Thirty-seven of 44 Los Angeles police officers identified as "problem officers" by the Christopher Commission have received counseling and retraining, according to a report to be submitted next week to the Police Commission. The remainder of the officers were either fired or resigned from the force.

Long before the current scandal erupted in the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division, top commanders had clear warnings that some of their elite, anti-gang officers lacked adequate supervision and were engaged in serious misconduct, including wrongly beating suspects and filing false reports.

Federal authorities said Friday that their civil rights investigation into the expanding Los Angeles Police Department corruption scandal is also focusing on the February 1998 beating of a handcuffed suspect held inside the Rampart station. Brian Hewitt, 34, the officer who allegedly beat the young man, was also involved in one of the station's controversial shootings, which left one man dead and two wounded. Hewitt fired seven of the 10 rounds discharged during the July 1996 incident.