Hd City of
Scandal
Los Angeles is not a place normally associated with government misfeasance, so the simultaneous appearance of two full-blown scandals one involving renegade cops at the LAPD’s Rampart division and the other involving ineptitude by school district officials related to the Belmont Learning Complex would seem to merit a kind of city-wide soul searching. As in, how could such things happen here, what does it say about us, etc.
But these are funny kinds of scandals that reflect textured some would say muted times. They can’t easily be laid out in black-and-white declarations of good and evil, which is perhaps the reason public reaction has been so limited.
The accusations against the Rampart cops, which include beatings inside the station and set-up shootings, are the most hideous the sort of “L.A. Confidential” skullduggery that was more in keeping with this town in the ’40s. The key question, of course, is whether the corruption being laid out is symptomatic of a bigger problem within the department or merely the actions of a few rogue cops assigned to one of L.A.’s toughest beats.
At this point, there is little indication of a broader scandal. In fact, those living and working in the Rampart area have come to the defense of the division as a whole, maintaining that the police have helped clean up a neighborhood that had been virtually taken over by gangs. Law-abiding citizens in crime-plagued neighborhoods tend to give cops wide latitude so much so that it can become easier for them to step over the line.
Of course, the allegations now being investigated involve leap-frogging over the line pretending, in fact, that there is no line. As a result, much is at stake specifically, the anti-gang injunctions that have been used effectively in combating street violence and perhaps hundreds of convictions that could now be tainted due to the officers’ possible illegal actions.
As is often the case in a police corruption probe, the temptation is to cast a wide net and reach for sweeping recommendations on changing the system whether or not the system really needs changing. Given the progress that’s been made in the wake of the Christopher Commission report, however, city officials should be careful before connecting the Rampart woes to any department-wide problems.
At the same time, it’s up to Police Chief Bernard Parks to avoid taking too defensive a posture and be open to the possibility that the scandal might involve more than a few bad cops.
As for Belmont, is anyone really surprised? An investigative report found that school district officials were, at best, inept in their handling of the downtown high school by ignoring cost overruns and not resolving environmental considerations. While affirming all the obvious suspicions about the district’s bloated and ineffective bureaucracy, the important question is how Belmont will change things.
Certainly, there is merit in the recommendation to discipline those most responsible for the fiasco, but the bigger issue is how to create an effectively managed, fiscally prudent school system where Belmont-like events are the exception, not the rule. Such an across-the-board housecleaning, which the LAPD went through with the Christopher Commission, is desperately needed at the LAUSD. Unearthing a scandal is one thing putting it in its proper context is quite another.
