CRASH: A Look at the Controversial LAPD Gang Unit That Inspired the Film "Training Day"
As a response to rising gang violence in Los Angeles, In the late 90s, the LAPD formed the elite CRASH Unit to combat the gangs. Unfortunately, in many ways, CRASH became the biggest gang in the city
Background
In the aftermath of Frank Serpico’s valiant struggle to expose police corruption in the 1970s, more than ever, the public’s eyes were opened to the corruption and amorality so often demonstrated by the very people who were supposed to uphold the law.
Police corruption is a problem around the world, not just in US major metropolitan areas like New York City and Chicago. From drug profiteering to collaboration with organized crime, and racial profiling to the use of excessive force, most police agencies have been involved in some controversy or another.
But by the turn of the 21st century, the Los Angeles Police Division (LAPD) made history–by creating one of the largest police misconduct scandals of the century.
A Brief History of CRASH
The LAPD has a long history of racially biased leadership and policies, from Ku Klux Klan-affiliated police chiefs to allegations of institutionalized racial profiling.
By the late twentieth century, the relationship between the LAPD and minority civilians (especially those in Black and Latino communities) was already strained–and these tensions only grew worse when the increasing profits from the international drug trade led to an influx of gang-related crime.
The LAPD’s solution to this problem was to implement special units known as Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH).
Teams were tasked with gang-related crime prevention and intelligence gathering. CRASH officers were given vast amounts of discretion in how they achieved these objectives, and before long, gang-related crime incidents had fallen from 1,171 (1992) to 464 (1999).
However, the unprecedented freedom given to CRASH units came with its own consequences–namely, a rise in police corruption.
CRASH officers were known to haze new recruits, celebrate shootings that resulted in the injury or death of suspects, and participate in gang profiling (a practice related to racial profiling, in which suspects are arrested based on a variety of dubious offenses, from associating with known gang members to wearing “gang clothing” or writing graffiti).
Witnesses later claimed that CRASH officers also participated in a number of illegal activities themselves–most notably, framing their victims by planting false evidence.
Unfortunately, though, these incidents only scratched the surface of CRASH members’ questionable behavior.
Road Rage Shootout
In March 1997, long before CRASH had been subject to any official criticism, headlines broke that Kevin Gaines, an off-duty CRASH cop, had been shot by his associate, LAPD undercover officer Frank Lyga.
Lyga claimed that he’d shot Gaines in self-defense.
In a story corroborated by several other witnesses, he testified that Gaines had pulled up beside him and flashed gang signs. He then proceeded to follow Lyga’s car while brandishing a handgun and loudly threatening to “cap” him.
Lyga fired his Beretta pistol into Gaines’s SUV twice.
The second shot was a lethal one, striking Gaines in the heart.
The ensuing controversy was highly publicized–partially because of Lyga’s vivid account of the shooting and partially because Lyga was white and Gaines, Black.
For a year following the shooting, Lyga was relegated to desk duty while an LAPD internal review panel investigated the incident for evidence of racial bias.
Eventually, they concluded that Lyga’s decision to shoot was “in policy”, meaning the shooting was justified.
The Death Row Records Connection
At the time of the shooting, Gaines was listening to “No Vaseline,” a diss track by rapper Ice Cube that was included on Death Row Records’ Greatest Hits compilation album.
The iconic record label (home to some of 90s hip hop’s biggest names, including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, and Snoop Dogg) had its own fair share of legal troubles and controversies.
Most significant to LAPD investigators, though, were Death Row’s owner Suge Knight’s affiliations with the Bloods–one of LA’s most notorious street gangs.
Further investigation of the connection between Gaines and Death Row found that Gaines was living with Knight’s estranged wife, Sharitha, at the time of the shooting.
More damningly, though, Knight had hired Gaines and a number of other off-duty police officers from the CRASH division as private security guards.
While they remain unconfirmed, later reports have implicated these corrupt LAPD cops in the murder of rapper Notorious B.I.G. in 1997.
More CRASH Controversies
The road rage shootout was the beginning of the end for CRASH.
Later that same year, bank robbers hit a Los Angeles branch of the Bank of America and made off with $722,000. Investigators were immediately suspicious of assistant manager Errolyn Romero, and before long Romero had confessed to her crimes–implicating her boyfriend, CRASH officer David Mack.
Just two days after the robbery, Mack had gone on a gambling spree in Las Vegas along with his colleague Raphael Pérez.
In May 1998, LAPD officers discovered that several pounds of cocaine–worth $800,000 on the street–had gone missing from an evidence room.
Pérez was almost immediately connected to the theft, and the following investigation found evidence of at least eleven other suspicious cocaine transfers under his signature.
When he was arrested in 1998, Pérez reportedly asked the arresting officers if it was “About the bank robbery,” although he later denied any knowledge of the crime.
Pérez’s Plea Deal
Concerned by the numerous allegations of gang affiliation, unwarranted violence, and theft by CRASH officers, LAPD Chief of Police Bernard Parks created an internal investigative task force known as the Rampart Corruption Task Force.
Raphael Pérez was their first target.
Following a mistrial, Pérez agreed to a deal with prosecutors: He would receive a five-year prison sentence and immunity from further prosecution in exchange for a guilty plea and information about illegal activities conducted by his fellow CRASH officers.
Over the next nine months, Pérez provided officers with over 4,000 pages of sworn testimony implicating about 70 other officers in misconduct–some cases as mild as drinking beer on the job and others being truly disturbing.
One of the most shocking revelations came in the early days of Pérez’s testimony. In 1996, Pérez and fellow officer Nino Durden entered the room of 19-year-old gang member Javier Ovando. According to Pérez and Durden, Ovando assaulted them, forcing them to shoot him in self-defense.
Ovando was left paralyzed from the waist down and sentenced to 23 years in prison based on Pérez and Durden’s testimony.
It was only in 1999, two and a half years after Ovando’s incarceration, that it was revealed Ovando never shot at the officers. He didn’t even pull a gun–Pérez and Durden had planted one on the scene.
In the following years, over 100 other convictions were overturned based on Pérez’s testimony.
Aftermath
In March 2000, Parks announced that he was disbanding all CRASH units, to be replaced by much more rigorously supervised anti-gang details.
A number of former CRASH officers, including Durden and Mack, were also arrested.
But it wasn’t enough. Review panels conducted by the police commission and external review boards all concluded that it was not just the CRASH culture but a rampant lack of LAPD oversight that had allowed corruption and misconduct to flourish right under Parks’ nose.
Just a few months later, in September 2000, the Los Angeles City Council voted 10-2 to accept a consent decree allowing for federal oversight of LAPD reform over the next five years.
In exchange, the Justice Department–which had been investigating allegations of excessive force by LAPD officers since 1996–agreed not to pursue a civil rights lawsuit against the city.
That same month, former LAPD detective Russell Poole filed a federal lawsuit against Parks and the city of Los Angeles. Poole alleged that his attempts to investigate the extent of corruption within the Department had been repeatedly obstructed by higher-ups, including Parks himself.
The police commission did not recommend Parks for reappointment.
Sources:
Newton, Jim, et al. “LAPD Condemned by Its Own Inquiry into Rampart Scandal.” Los Angeles Times, 1 Mar. 2000, www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-mar-01-mn-4150-story.html. Accessed 15 May 2024.
Otterbourg, Ken. “California 1999.” The National Library of Exonerations, 25 Mar. 2020, exonerations.newkirkcenter.uci.edu/groups/group-exonerations/california-1999. Accessed 15 May 2024.
Parks, Bernard. Board of Inquiry into the Rampart Area Corruption Incident. Los Angeles Police Department, 1 Mar. 2000.
“Rampart Scandal Timeline.” Frontline, PBS, 2001, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/scandal/cron.html. Accessed 15 May 2024.
Reese, Renford. The Multiple Causes of the LAPD Rampart Scandal. California State Polytechnic University, 2003.