In 1998, a scandal broke involving the Los Angeles Police Department. Earlier in the 1990s, some three dozen members of an anti-gang police task force in the Rampart Division, a unit located halfway between downtown and Hollywood, were revealed to have interrogated and brutalized residents without probable cause and then fabricated evidence to wrongfully convict more than one hundred Hispanics. Among the misdeeds of the cabal, one officer robbed a bank, another wrongfully shot and killed a resident, and at least two were involved in selling cocaine that had been confiscated during police raids. Code of Silence: Inside the Rampart Scandal, a documentary directed by Chris Sikorowski, reveals details of the scandal, which became known after one of the corrupt cops engaged in a plea bargain in 1999. However, at one point the police chief (who was fired by the newly elected major in 2001) stopped cooperating with the district attorney and issued stern threats against those involved, prompting the rest of the police cabal to clam up. The anti-gang task force, whose members were selected secretly and operated out of an unsupervised special location, was not disbanded until the year 2000. The documentary ends by noting that LAPD doubtless still employs many of those responsible for ignoring the constitution and taking the law into their own hands, with more than $56.5 million paid out in 144 civil settlements after their criminal convictions were overturned. Out of more than 70 police officers investigated, 12 were fined or suspended, 9 were charged criminally, but only 4 were convicted and imprisoned, including the one who made the plea bargain that was uncorroborated due to the code of silence that fell on LAPD after the police chief decided to handle the matter internally. As of 2004, the cost of investigation and litigation totaled $125 million. The documentary, which has never been exhibited commercially, is uniquely available on the DVD for Cellular (2004), which focuses on a kidnapping by police to retrieve a videotape that reveals police in the act of stealing drug money and beating gang members in a manner similar to the methods used by the anti-gang task force officers. MH
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