La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, California
January 2000

LOS(T) ANGELES: The Shameful LAPD and LAUSD Corruption Scandals

The City of Los Angeles, California, with the second largest Mexican population next to Mexico City, is starting the new millennium with two major corruption scandals clouding its future. The first scandal is unprecedented in the annals of the city's history and concerns Los Angeles Police Department officers involved in large scale criminal activities that include murder, bank robbery, street muggins, drug dealing, torture, false arrests, witness intimidation and the framing and imprisoning of innocent Latino youths. The second corruption scandal concerns the Los Angeles Unified School District's fleecing of school children's education funds in cahoots with a cabal of crooked lawyers, contractors and consultants. The Los Angeles Unified School District is the second largest in the U.S. and is 72% Latino. These two scandals have victimized mostly citizens and children of Mexican descent who are at the mercy of authorities that care little for the well being of this largest segment of the city's population.

The LAPD scandal became unravelling when a dirty cop was arrested for stealing three kilos of cocaine from the police evidence room in 1998. The subsequent investigation uncovered a pattern of corruption that has shocked the good citizens of the City of Angels. It turned out that LAPD officers where involved deeply in the drug trade in an area whose residents are predominantly from Mexico and Central America. Scores of officers have been relieved of duty and it is expected that many more in the higher ranks will eventually be indicted. The investigation has been fueled by the testimony of an officer that turned informant. The officer's testimony has included a dastardly description of how he and other cops would stop, beat up and plant evidence on the Latino youths of the area. In one case, he described how he shot an unarmed 18 year old immigrant from Central America and how he and his partner planted a shotgun on the scene and then intimidated him to plead guilty. The youth, Javier Ovando, was left paralyzed and was imprisoned. Soon after the confession of the cop, Javier was released and he is now suing the city and police department.

Since the release of Javier Ovando, three more Latino youths have been released because of tainted prosecutions. Reliable sources believe that more than 3,300 cases are also tainted through the planting of evidence and the intimidation of witnesses by the police and that more than 800 prisoners may have to be released. With this pattern of police corruption in Los Angeles and other major cities in this country, it is no wonder that the incarceration rate of Latino youth is at an all time high. It almost seems that the U.S. judicial system and law enforcement is waging war on our young people who reside in immigrant communities. It is horrifying to know that there are people in prison, with every aspect of their lives in shambles, solely because of lies by police officers.

The second major corruption scandal facing El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles is the outright theft of billions of the 7 billion dollar per year budget of the Los Angeles Unified School District that is meant, in part, for the education of over 500,000 Latino children. The LAUSD has approximately 700,000 students and delivers one of the most inferior educational programs in the United States. The district is supposed to be governed by a 7 member school board that is elected one each in seven political districts. Because of outright gerrymandering of the districts' boundaries, Latinos have been able to elect only one of the seven school members. Over the years this has resulted in the election of political cliques that care little in educating the growing and majority Latino, largely immigrant, student population. The school board politicians respond to the business interests of the city's elite and over the years have squandered billions of dollars. One particular corruption scandal has involved the district's school construction program that has shamelessly enriched top level school administrators, many who have since been dismissed or have retired. One notorious case among many involves the most expensive non-high school in the nation called the Belmont Learning Center that was meant to serve immigrant Latino students from low income families in the downtown area of the city.

The Belmont Learning Center has so far cost over 272 million dollars but it still stands only about 2/3 completed on a toxic lot a few blocks from city hall. There are serious doubts that it will ever be completed. This project is a perfect example of how billions of dollars have been stolen over the years by unscrupulous vendors, contractors, consultants and unsavory lawyers with inside help from school politicians and crooked and incompetent school administrators. The Belmont Learning Center involves questionable land deals, shady contractors and greedy lawyers tied to the mayor's office and a prestigious law firm. The case has been investigated by the County's Grand Jury and the County's District Attorney is being pressured to bring prosecutions but judging from how the LAPD scandal is being handled, there is a good possibility that the crooks may never be brought to justice. In L.A. , it appears that only Mexicans, other Latinos, impoverished immigrant youths and blacks get prison terms. After all, who will fill the brand new cells built by one of the fastest growing industries in California?

There seems to be significant connections in these two Los Angeles scandals that have major implications for Mexicans and other Latinos in the city, the state and the nation. The LAPD crooked cops where taking advantage of the anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant hysteria that was begun by former Governor Pete Wilson when he called for a war on the Latino youths of the Pico-Union area of Los Angleles and who were associated with an organization called the 18th Street gang. This anti-Latino hysteria created the so called anti-gang CRASH program that gave license to the LAPD to abuse the civil rights of the residents of the immigrant community. The results is what we have witnessed in terms of the framing and imprisonment of innocent victims. On one side we have a political establishment that justifies police brutality and misconduct on the grounds that police authorities are dealing with "dangerous" criminal youths who commit crimes, because of their unemployability due to lack of education, and on the other side we have these same political hacks stealing the money that is meant for the education of these youths. This a classic Catch-22 for La Raza in Los Angeles and, in large part, in the United States as a whole.

Hector Carreon is the founder and editor of La Voz de Aztlan and resides in Whittier, California. He was born in the Mexican state of Chihuahua and moved to Aztlan at the age of 5 years. Hector is a graduate in Civil Engineering from California State University at Long Beach where he was a founding member of the Society of Mexican-American Engineers and Scientists (MAES). He served honorably for two year as a Vietnam-era soldier in the U.S Army's 2nd Armored Division and is a graduate of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund's Advanced Leadership Program. Hector Carreon can be contacted at La Voz de Aztlan