Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums

CRASH was subject of the Rampart scandal from 1997, which exposed widespread police corruption within the unit assigned to the LAPD's Rampart Division, including involvement in murders, extortion, police brutality, evidence planting, and participating in gang activity. CRASH was disbanded in 2000 and was replaced by the LAPD Gang and Narcotics Division.

History

Establishment

By 1973, street gangs were quickly becoming a problem in the 77th Street Division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), located in the South Central area of Los Angeles, California. Deputy Chief Lou Sporrer, commanding officer of South Bureau, responsible for 77th Street Division operations and ultimately responsible to Chief of Police Edward M. Davis, created a unit of uniformed officers and a plainclothes intelligence section. The two were combined to be identified as 77th Street Division TRASH, an acronym for "Total Resources Against Street Hoodlums" with the idea of demeaning gang activities. Community activists began efforts to abolish the TRASH unit, stating the name itself dehumanizes gang members. Sporrer agreed to a name change, with the "T" for Total becoming a "C" for Community and TRASH became CRASH. In addition to gang-related crime prevention, CRASH officers also had to obtain information about a specific gang that was assigned to them and relay that information between districts. The "freedom of movement and activity" and "gung ho" nature of CRASH officers led some of them to incite controversy among themselves and the whole CRASH unit.

In the 1980s, gang violence began to increase dramatically as a result of the drug trade, specifically the introduction of crack cocaine.

Operation Hammer

Operation Hammer was a CRASH-led initiative that began in 1987 to crack down on gang violence in South Central Los Angeles. As a result of increasing gang violence and a drive-by killing resulting in the deaths of seven people, then-Chief of Police Daryl Gates responded by sending CRASH officers to arrest suspected gang members. At the height of this operation in April 1988, 1,453 people were arrested by one thousand police officers in a single weekend. Despite the large number of initial arrests, they only resulted in 60 felony arrests, and charges were only filed in 32 instances. While considered successful by some, this operation and the LAPD were maligned with accusations of racism; some believed that Operation Hammer heavily employed racial profiling, targeting African American and Hispanic youths that were labelled as "urban terrorists" and "ruthless killers." However, proponents of the operation asserted that it was not discriminatory as all gang members arrested had warrants for their arrests.

Rampart Division CRASH scandal

Every LAPD patrol division had a CRASH unit stationed in it. One of the most prominent CRASH units was stationed in the Rampart Division.

On February 26, 1998, Rampart CRASH officer Brian Hewitt was suspended and later stripped of his job when allegations arose of a cover-up of the beating and asphyxiation of Ismail Jiminez. Hewitt was accused of choking Jiminez in an interview room when the suspect refused to provide evidence of gang activities. When Jiminez reported his beating at a hospital, the evidence implicated Hewitt and led to his termination at a Board of Rights hearing.

In August 1998, the same month that Chief Bernard Parks claimed that the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department reforms were "essentially complete", officer Rafael Pérez, a nine-year LAPD veteran, was arrested on charges of stealing six pounds (2.7 kilograms) of cocaine from the department's Property Division. Pérez was initially tried on one count of possession of cocaine for sale, grand theft and forgery each. After a mistrial on December 7 of that year, more reports of cocaine theft by Pérez arose. In September 1999, in exchange for partial immunity from prosecution, he testified about a pattern of abuse and misconduct involving seventy CRASH officers, threatening to overturn thousands of criminal convictions.

As part of his plea bargain, Pérez implicated scores of officers from the Rampart Division's anti-gang unit, describing routinely beating gang members, planting evidence on suspects, falsifying reports and covering up unprovoked shootings. As of May 2001, the Rampart investigation had brought fifty-eight officers before an internal administrative board. Of these, twelve were suspended, seven resigned, and five were terminated. Perez confessed to framing Javier Ovando, an 18th Street Gang member, who was shot by Nino Durden and Perez on October 12, 1996.

Kevin Starr, the State Librarian of California, wrote in his history of California in the 1990s that "CRASH ... became, in effect, the most badass gang in the city."