The Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) was a specialized

gang intelligence unit A gang intelligence unit (GIU) (also known as an anti-gang unit, gang suppression unit, gang task force, or simply a gang unit, among many other terms) is an American law enforcement unit tasked with investigating, suppressing, and combatting ga ...

of the

Los Angeles Police Department The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

(LAPD) tasked with combating

gang A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Wiktionary:territory#Noun, territory in a ...

-related crime between 1979 and 2000. The unit was established in the South Central district of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States, to combat rising gang violence during the period. Each of the LAPD's 18 divisions had a CRASH unit assigned to it, whose primary goal was to suppress gang-related crimes in the city, which came about primarily from the increase in

illegal drug trade The illegal drug trade, drug trafficking, or narcotrafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of drug prohibition, prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibitionism, prohibit trade, exce ...

. CRASH was subject of the Rampart scandal from 1997, which exposed widespread

police corruption Police corruption is a form of police misconduct in which a law enforcement officer breaks their political contract and abuses their power for personal gain. A corrupt officer may act alone or as part of a group. Corrupt acts include taking ...

within the unit assigned to the LAPD's Rampart Division, including involvement in

murders Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excuse ...

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money or goods) through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded ...

police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or Public order policing, a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, b ...

, 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 gang A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Wiktionary:territory#Noun, territory in a ...

s were quickly becoming a problem in the 77th Street Division of the

(LAPD), located in the South Central area of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. 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 An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

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 A chief of police (COP) is the title given to an appointed official or an elected one in the command hierarchy, chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. A chief of police may also be known as a police chief or somet ...

Daryl Gates Daryl Francis Gates (born Darrel Francis Gates; August 30, 1926 – April 16, 2010) was an American police officer who served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992. His length of tenure in this position was second only t ...

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 Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

; some believed that Operation Hammer heavily employed

racial profiling Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the offender profiling, selective enforcement or selective prosecution based on race or ethnicity, rather than individual suspicion or evidence. This practice involves discrimination against minority pop ...

, targeting

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

and

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

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 The Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) serves communities to the west of Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) including Silver Lake, Los Angeles, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Pico-Union, Los Angeles, Pico-Union and Westlake, Los Ange ...

. 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

asphyxia Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects all the tissues and organs, some more rapidly than others. There are m ...

tion 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 Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

from the department's Property Division. Pérez was initially tried on one count of possession of cocaine for sale,

grand theft Theft (, cognate to ) is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal short ...

and

forgery Forgery is a white-collar crime that generally consists of the false making or material alteration of a legal instrument with the specific mens rea, intent to wikt:defraud#English, defraud. Tampering with a certain legal instrument may be fo ...

each. After a

mistrial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, ...

on December 7 of that year, more reports of cocaine theft by Pérez arose. In September 1999, in exchange for partial

immunity Immunity may refer to: Medicine * Immunity (medical), resistance of an organism to infection or disease * ''Immunity'' (journal), a scientific journal published by Cell Press Biology * Immune system Engineering * Radiofrequence 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 Javier Francisco Ovando (born 1977) is a Honduran man who became a central figure in the LAPD Rampart scandal when he was shot and framed by corrupt Rampart officers Rafael Pérez and Nino Durden. Ovando is an immigrant to the United States and ...

, an

18th Street Gang The 18th Street Gang, also known as , , , or simply in North America, is a multi-ethnic (largely Central American and Culture of Mexico, Mexican) street gang in Los Angeles. It is one of the largest street gangs in Los Angeles, with around 30 ...

member, who was shot by

Nino Durden Gino Floyd "Nino" Durden (born May 5, 1963) is a former American police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) unit implicated in the LAPD Rampart scandal. Durden, along with Officer Ra ...

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."

In popular culture

A fictionalized version of C.R.A.S.H. appears as the main antagonistic faction in the 2004

open world In video games, an open world is a virtual world in which the Gamer, player can approach objectives freely, as opposed to a world with more linear and structured gameplay. Notable games in this category include ''The Legend of Zelda (video game ...

action-adventure An action-adventure game is a video game genre, video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres. Definition An action adventure game can be defined as a game with a mix of elements f ...

video game '' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas''. The unit is led by Officers Frank Tenpenny (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) and Eddie Pulaski (

Chris Penn Christopher Shannon Penn (October 10, 1965 – January 24, 2006), credited as Chris Penn after 1991, was an American actor. He was the brother of actor Sean Penn and musician Michael Penn. Noted as a skilled character actor, he was typically cas ...

), who have criminal ties in Los Santos (the in-game version of Los Angeles) and often engage in deals with gangs for personal profit. The unit's unofficial motto ("We intimidate those who intimidate others") is explicitly used by Tenpenny with protagonist Carl Johnson ( Young Maylay), whom he blackmails into doing various jobs meant to prevent C.R.A.S.H's illicit activities from going public. However, C.R.A.S.H.'s third member, Jimmy Hernandez ( Armando Riesco), eventually decides to do the right thing and report his partners' illegal activities, causing him to be killed by them. Near the end of the game, Pulaski is killed by Carl, and Tenpenny is arrested for his crimes, but is acquitted in his trial due to an alleged lack of evidence. This enrages the residents of Los Santos, resulting in violence across the city, mirroring the real-life

1992 Los Angeles riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, United States, during April and May 1992. Unrest began in South Los Angeles, South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after ...

. The riots eventually end after Tenpenny's death in a car crash. The 1988 film ''Colors'' stars

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor. With a career spanning seven decades, he is regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. He has received an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a British Academy Film Awards ...

and

Sean Penn Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He is known for his intense leading man roles in film. List of awards and nominations received by Sean Penn, His accolades include two Academy Awards, a Golden Gl ...

as two members of C.R.A.S.H. Although corruption in L.A.'s C.R.A.S.H. unit had yet to be exposed when ''

Training Day ''Training Day'' is a 2001 American crime thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Ayer. It stars Denzel Washington as Alonzo Harris and Ethan Hawke as Jake Hoyt, two LAPD narcotics officers followed over a 24-hour period ...

'' was written, Antoine Fuqua has stated that the emergence of the Rampart scandal in the late 1990s catalyzed the completion of the film. Denzel Washington also grew a beard in order to emulate the appearance of Rafael Pérez, an LAPD narcotics officer involved in multiple scandals.Jonathan Markovitz (October 14, 2011). Racial Spectacles:Explorations in Media, Race and Justice. Taylor & Francis. The police drama series '' The Shield'' (2002-2008), which revolves around a corrupt anti-gang unit called the Strike Team, is based on the Rampart scandal. Rampart was the original name for the show.

References

External links

Media reports of Rampart scandal

Timeline of LAPD scandals

Full transcripts of Rafael Pérez interrogation

Report of the Rampart Independent Review Panel
(November 16, 2000).
LAPD Online - Rampart Reconsidered
{{Rampart scandal Law enforcement operations in the United States Los Angeles Police Department Los Angeles Police Department units History of Los Angeles Organized crime in Los Angeles 1979 establishments in California 2000 disestablishments in California