The 13 Biggest LAPD Screw-Ups of All Time

The Rampart scandal is another well-known piece of LAPD history, with betrayals of trust and demonstrations of treachery that Shakespeare would have loved. The Rampart division had an anti-gang unit known as Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH). Many officers involved with this unit engaged in misconduct, including planting evidence, bank robberies. dealing drugs, and committing perjury. 

One CRASH officer, Kevin Gaines, was shot by undercover officer Frank Lyga in 1997. The shooting was ruled self-defense, resulting from road rage. After Lyga was cleared and put back on duty, cocaine he had placed in evidence went missing. The investigation into the missing cocaine led to CRASH officer Rafael Perez, who may have taken the cocaine to frame Lyga in retaliation for Gaines's shooting. 

Once arrested, Perez agreed to give details about the illegal activities at Rampart. He implicated over 70 officers. 

Afterwards

Of the officers Perez named, 24 were found to have done something wrong. 12 were suspended, 7 retired or resigned, and five were fired. 

As a result of the framing and perjury the dirty officers engaged in, 106 convictions were overturned, and the LAPD had to pay out over $125 million in settlements. 

Christopher Dorner was an LAPD officer who was dismissed from the force in 2008 for making false statements. Bitter about his dismissal and what he alleged was ongoing racism in the department, he went on a killing spree in February of 2013, which included going after the daughter of the captain who Dorner felt had inadequately defended him at his disciplinary hearing.

In their pursuit of Dorner, LAPD officers ended up shooting numerous rounds at a truck with two women inside, hitting a 71-year-old in the back and injuring the other. Neither woman had any resemblance at all to Dorner, and the truck wasn't even the make or color of the one driven by Dorner. Yet the LAPD is consistent in this screw-up: Another set of officers shot at a different truck, one that also was nothing close to the one driven by Dorner. Fortunately its occupant was lucky enough to come through the shooting unscathed. 

Afterwards

Dorner killed himself in a cabin in Big Bear, but not before killing four people in the course of his rampage. The big screw up there is that the cabin in Big Bear he was staying at was only 200 YARDS away from the LAPD command post.  It remains to be seen if the LAPD will try to address his complaints of continuing racial discrimination. 

And the innocent women whose truck was shot up by the LAPD? They're getting a new truck. 

Steven Eugene Washington was a 27-year-old man with autism and learning disabilities who liked trains and was shy around strangers. In March of 2010, he was shot and killed by LAPD officers from a gang enforcement unit. The officers stopped Washington after being startled by a loud noise while out in their patrol car in Koreatown. The officers said that Washington did not heed their commands and they thought he was reaching for a weapon. Washington was in fact unarmed, and most likely did not explicitly obey the officers because of his learning disabilities and general discomfort with strangers. 

Afterwards

After the shooting, the ACLU urged the LAPD to review its policies on when to use lethal force.